Double O Who?
by ForzaDelDestino
Summary: James Bond returns from a mission with a concussion and degree of memory loss. As he recovers, his legendary skills, charisma, and libido appear to be undamaged but there's a great deal he simply can't remember. 007's colleagues at MI6- most specifically Tanner, Moneypenny, and Q-are encouraged to jog his slowly returning memory. Slowish build, shifting POV.
1. Chapter 1

_James Bond returns from a post-Skyfall mission with a concussion and a degree of memory loss. As he recovers, his legendary skills, charisma, and libido appear to be undamaged but there's a great deal he simply can't remember. 007's colleagues at MI6—most specifically Tanner, Moneypenny, and Q—are encouraged to jog his slowly returning memory and help fill in the gaps in his knowledge. What Q can't quite understand is why Bond, with his past conquests of countless women, now seems to be pursuing him. Slow-ish build and shifting POVs._

 **Chapter 1: Who's Who?**

"Agent down," said Tanner in a strained voice, eyes on the blurred and grainy satellite image, and Moneypenny gave an involuntary start, twisting both hands in her lap. Q shot a look in M's direction and saw the man's lips press together tightly although his face showed no particular change of emotion.

"Wait," Tanner continued, very quietly, and the tension in the room was thick enough, Q thought, to be cut with the proverbial knife.

"Please," whispered Moneypenny, almost inaudibly, and a few glances flickered in her direction from the Q Branch staff. Of course everybody knew about James Bond's near brush with death, from Moneypenny's bullet, roughly one year earlier, and how she had been the one, that time, to say "Agent down," through the comm link. And now somebody else—Bond's intended target—had brought him down again.

This time it had been an ambush. Had it been otherwise—a hand-to-hand, one-on-one fight—there was no doubt in anybody's mind that Bond would have emerged the winner and his opponent would be lying where he was now.

"Send medical evac," M muttered sharply, and Moneypenny nodded before speaking rapidly into her own headset. He narrowed his eyes with displeasure when Moneypenny, of her own accord, snapped into her mouthpiece, "Regardless of his condition," but made no effort to contradict her.

"He's moving," Tanner said, still in a low voice, but his cautious relief was plain to hear. "He's alive."

Q's fingers were flying across his keyboard, sending precise coordinates to the recovery team. He, Tanner, Moneypenny, and M were crowded round one of the workstation monitors in what most MI6 employees referred to as "The Bunker," their harsh, anxious breathing all but drowned out by the clatter of Q's subordinates on their computer keyboards. They had lost visual contact now, but the image had been so poor it had been impossible to make out the nature or extent of their agent's injuries.

Neither Tanner nor Moneypenny—nor M for that matter—made a move to return to their usual station in the monolithic ziggurat at Vauxhall Cross, official home of the Secret Intelligence Service. As long as Q Branch was still ensconced in the underground bunker, there was still a great deal of traffic between the two venues. Q hoped the rumors were true, that his unit and staff were to be moved above ground, to the main building, in the near future.

"The new sub-dermal micro-tracker worked well," Tanner muttered in a subdued voice as Q continued to monitor the progress of the recovery team. "And it's virtually undetectable." He essayed a hint of a congratulatory nod in Q's direction and Q dipped his head in acknowledgement. He had been with MI6 for a year and had won the grudging approval of virtually all of the Service's upper level staff and old timers, not to mention the glowing admiration of the younger employees. And as unaccustomed as they were to taking orders from a department head who looked more like a twenty-something student than anything else, the senior members of Q Branch were now far more comfortable with him than they had been in his first few weeks at the job. They were even accepting of the new, youthful computer techs and hackers he had brought into the fold since his arrival.

Somewhat to his surprise he had also been approached, rather slyly, by several MI6 employees at least fifteen to twenty years his senior, for reasons that had nothing to do with espionage. Their overtures had been politely turned down. Perhaps they had been under the impression that because of his youth, his slim, delicate frame, boyish features, and even more boyish head of wayward dark hair, he might be open to extracurricular activities of the carnal sort. Which was certainly not the case. Q had no intention of mixing business with any sort of sexual adventure.

He was, at least, on good terms with Tanner, and had a friendly rapport with M's assistant, Eve Moneypenny. Even more importantly—at least in terms of his career—M appeared to think well of him, in spite of his rocky initiation during the Skyfall affair of the previous year. And the field agents, the Double Os in particular, had come to rely on the information he relayed to them via the comm link, and for the devices with which he kept them supplied. A few—not 007 of course—had even thanked him for his efforts on their behalf.

"Retrieval completed," came a tinny voice over the amplified comm link, and everybody started. "En route to medical facility. Subject stabilized. Sending stats now. Over."

Q cast a quick glance at his colleagues. Tanner had located a handkerchief and was wiping at his brow, beneath his thinning hairline, and Moneypenny, looking strained but bright-eyed with relief, was leaning on Q's workstation.

"Well done," Mallory said quietly, his voice slightly less tense. "Carry on." He headed for the door but Tanner and Moneypenny barely raised their heads, still focused on the graphs and numbers coming up on Q's monitor…Bond's vital signs.

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James Bond lay still with his eyes closed, his face a deliberate blank. This trick seemed to work with the nurses; they left him alone, stopped nattering at him about names and dates and places, few of which had rung any bells. It was, in fact, only a day since he had remembered his own name.

"Mr Bond," a doctor had said to him, breaking into the blissful, pain-free cocoon of solitude in which he had been floating for…for how long? He didn't know. But the name. Yes, that was his name. And little fragments of memory nagged at him. An irate headmaster, addressing him sharply by his surname. Recollections of childhood flooded slowly back. The vast sky beyond the stone walls of his home, and the scent of dew on grass beneath the old stone wall. The dogs. Kincaid, teaching him to load a rifle. Then, bringing with it a sense of peace and warmth, the memory of his mother's face.

"James." A familiar voice, not a doctor's, echoed above his bed.

His mother had called him James. And sometimes Jamie. But this voice didn't belong to his mother. Bond kept his eyes stubbornly closed, but he could hear the rustle of bedclothes and stiff white uniforms, the clatter of metal instruments somewhere, the soft padding of rubber-soled shoes. There was the sharp smell of alcohol, and then, unexpectedly, the jab of a needle. Bond grunted.

"He's awake, doctor."

"No," Bond heard himself say with surprising clarity, eyes still closed. "I'm not."

Some time later—a day later, he was told—a face appeared, hovering above his bed. He had seen it before; he was certain he knew this man, but couldn't come up with a name.

"Bond," said the man. He had a pale, serious face, keen, narrow eyes and a footballer's neck. "It's Tanner."

"Tanner," replied Bond, squinting against the hospital lighting. "Right. Tanner, I don't suppose I might have a drink?"

"There's a glass of water on your tray table—"

"No," Bond murmured, lips turning downward. "I meant, a _drink_."

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The neurosurgeon stood nervously before the desk in M's office, shifting from foot to foot. It was highly unlikely, Q thought, that he had ever been summoned to the offices of MI6 before, and M's cool, unreadable expression was not making things any easier.

"Well?" M asked briskly, handing a sheaf of signed documents to Tanner and turning his attention fully to the man facing him. The doctor wiped his brow, and Tanner and Q—who had come to report on the success of 007's new subdermal tracker—exchanged glances of mild sympathy.

"There's no excessive swelling, no inflammation that we can see," said the doctor, consulting his notes. "Trauma, certainly, but concussion only, no fractures."

"Concussion only," M said, wrinkling his brow. The doctor was mumbling into his notes and M's lips twitched with impatience before he pointedly cleared his throat.

"And no serious damage to the brain that we're able to detect," the doctor continued, still under his breath. "The memory loss…well, no one can be sure. Memory should return to him over time; hopefully within weeks, or possibly months. He's already recalled…"—his face twisted a little wryly—"a fondness for dry martinis and a certain brand of whisky."

M frowned, and Tanner and Q exchanged glances for a second time. It wasn't difficult to guess what M might be concerned about, or why he had summoned the neurologist for a private consultation. He would be wondering whether or not 007 represented a security risk. Whether Bond, in his present condition, might inadvertently reveal sensitive information to an enemy agent. Or to anybody, really, who lacked the proper clearance.

It was difficult to think of Bond as being clueless in this regard. 007, the field operative of whom so many stories were told, and on whose exploits so many MI6 legends were based. The agent with keen instincts, intelligence (even by Q's standards) and lightning-fast reflexes; the cold-eyed, irresistible seducer. A good percentage of the women—not to mention some of the men—at Headquarters patently worshiped him. Q sniffed with disapproval; as impressed as he was with Bond's abilities, he found this starry-eyed adoration rather distasteful. Although for months now he had been able to admit to himself that he, like so many of his colleagues, found James Bond attractive, the man was certainly not the only MI6 employee Q considered glance-worthy. And the mildly sardonic manner with which he addressed his young Quartermaster had always been frustra…er, irritating.

"When he's been discharged," M was saying, looking from his Assistant to his Quartermaster, "I think both of you should see what you can do with him. You know, jog the memory a bit. If that's possible."

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Less than two weeks later, Q raised his eyes from his keyboard to find Moneypenny standing in front of his work station.

"M wants to see you," she said without any preamble, pressing neatly lacquered fingertips against her brow as though attempting to eradicate a headache. "It's 007. He's been discharged from hospital. I've been chatting with him," she added with a quizzical half-smile. "As has Tanner. Now M would like you to have a word with him, at once, if you don't mind."

Q sighed and stood up, rotating his shoulder blades to ease the stiffness there.

"Right," he sighed, gesturing to Nasser and Michaels, two of his top-ranked programmers, to take over for him. "I'm with you. Where is it we're meeting?"

The meeting place, as it transpired, was a small conference room down the hall from M's office. Entering silently, Q found Bond seated in an armchair by the window, looking out at the London dusk. He was as usual, impeccably, if somewhat casually, dressed, in dark grey trousers and a white shirt with no tie. A half-empty glass of clear liquid—Q hoped it was water or seltzer—stood on the table beside him.

To Q's eye, Bond looked much as he always did, his expression neutral, or faintly sardonic but not hostile, his body relaxed but his mental faculties clearly alert. The way his head snapped round, eyes focusing instantly on his visitor the moment Q stepped into the room, indicated that his senses and reflexes were quite possibly as keen as ever. It was the lack of instant recognition, followed by a look of guarded puzzlement, that startled the MI6 Quartermaster, as much as he had prepared himself for it.

"007," he said calmly, in a matter-of-fact voice, as he had been told to do. Bond, he had been informed, would pick up on an anxious tone, or nervousness, right away. "It's good to see you're recovering so well."

Bond ran one hand though his close-cropped fair hair and cleared his throat. After a moment's pause, he said, "I know you."

"Oh?" said Q with surprise, realizing, belatedly, that he must sound like an idiot. "That's good."

"I meant, I know you…don't I?"

"Er," said Q, his ordinarily self-assured and brisk delivery faltering a little. "You…do, yes you do, 007. Excellent."

"That is, I know I've seen you before. And the voice is familiar. But I don't recall your name."

"I," Q began, looking round helplessly for Tanner, who, fortunately for him, had entered the room just behind him.

"This is our Head of Q Branch," Tanner murmured in a level voice. "And yes, you do know him."

"I don't seem to recall your name, Head of Q Branch."

"Oh," Q replied, realizing that 007, were he in his normal frame of mind, would have been grinning ironically at the hesitancy in his Quartermaster's voice. "You, um, know me as Q. That's all."

"Really," said Bond flatly, eying him. "A bit young, aren't you, to be at the helm of an MI6 section?"

"Most advances in technology are being made by the young, 007," Q retorted coolly, recalling their acerbic exchange at the National Gallery, a year earlier. Tanner made vague diplomatic noises in the background, but Bond did not appear to have taken offense.

"Point taken," Bond said in a faintly amused tone of voice, and Q forced himself to smile, until Bond wrinkled his brow and continued, "Yes, I know I've seen your face before. But as I remember it—hazily, I'll admit—the Head of Q Branch was an older fellow. That is to say…he was hardly a pretty university student."

"Q isn't," Tanner said hastily, watching the Quartermaster's expression harden. "A student, that is. And you're thinking of this Q's predecessor."

"'Pretty' is hardly a word I'd use to describe myself, 007," Q added, effectively hiding the indignation Bond's words had roused in him. "And I don't know that there's anything about me that would lead you to believe I'm a student."

"Rubbish," Bond retorted, just as calmly. "You're wearing a Cambridge tie."

"Well," Tanner said after a moment of silence. "It's clear a good part of your memory is still intact. I'll leave you three to get acquainted, that is, reacquainted, shall I? Back in an hour or so. Perhaps you'd be so kind as to show 007 round your section, Q, it might…might help with the memory, so…"

"Of course," Q muttered, turning towards the door. "If you'll follow me, 007…"

"I'll join you in a moment," Moneypenny said brightly. She had been hovering by Bond's chair; now she moved deliberately in the direction of M's office. "You two go on, I'll be along after I've spoken with—" She gestured surreptitiously in the direction of the baize door.

"Right," Q replied, one hand on the doorknob, and then watched, without surprise as Bond's eyes dwelt on Moneypenny's retreating back and neatly swinging backside. There was a certain degree of appreciation in his lifted eyebrows as he turned to Q and asked, in a low voice and confidential tone, angling his chin in Moneypenny's direction, "Is she…are we sleeping together?"

For perhaps a split second Q's lips curved upwards, before he pressed them together. "I think you had best ask the lady herself, 007. I don't know the answer to your question, and if I did, it would not be my place to say."

Of course he was fairly certain—as was everybody else—that whatever intimate shenanigans Bond and Moneypenny had got up to during the Skyfall affair, they were now no more than colleagues and good friends. But he didn't think it appropriate to say another word on the subject.

"I am duly rebuked, Head of Q Branch," Bond said with a hint of his old insouciance, turning his sharp blue gaze from M's door to Q's face. "Lead on, then. I'm curious to see what sort of lair you preside over."

Q sighed with exasperation and ran both of his hands through his hair. Looking up, he found Bond eyeing his unruly locks, and then his face, with the same kind of interested curiosity he had directed at Moneypenny. Therefore, it should not have come as a shock to him when 007 raised an eyebrow and addressed him in the same confidential undertone he had used earlier.

"Q…are _we_ sleeping together?"

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Replaying this moment later, in his mind, Q attempted to amuse himself by wondering what would have happened if he had said, "Yes. We are."

That would have been entirely unethical, as well as being untrue, and as entertaining as it might be to imagine the aftermath to such a comment, Q wouldn't have dreamed of, well…

"It looks," Moneypenny was murmuring, somewhat dejectedly, "as though we'll be babysitting 007 for the rest of the week. Or longer."

Q raised his head. "Oh?" He had given Bond a brief tour through the various offices and laboratories of Q Branch, turned him over to a nurse from Medical, and was now sitting in M's anteroom, fiddling aimlessly with a (non-exploding) pen, a sheaf of printouts in his other hand. He was recalling, with a touch of embarrassment and a peculiar sense of gratification, how Bond's eyes had scanned his face, focusing on his eyes and then his mouth, before making a rapid, sly sweep of the rest of him. That had been completely unexpected, but he had taken a vague satisfaction in the thought that 007 found him worth looking at, at all.

Bond's memory loss must be more grave than medical reports had indicated, Q said to himself wryly. That he had given Moneypenny an approving once-over was to be expected, but the very thought of this particular field agent expressing erotic interest in a thin, bespectacled boffin like himself made Q roll his eyes and stifle the desire to snort with derision.

Not that such an interest would mean anything, naturally. James Bond, Agent 007, had a well-established reputation as a man of generally promiscuous tendencies and numerous sexual escapades, even if one didn't count the people he seduced out of necessity, for purely work-related reasons. There had been only a few men among the many marks he had slept with while on missions, and it was Q's opinion—as well as everybody else's—that those male-on-male encounters, a mere handful when compared to his bevy of female conquests, had been undertaken in the line of duty rather than out of any sort of preference. It was common knowledge, as well, that he steered clear of anything resembling commitment or romantic entanglements. "A bit of a cold fish," Michaels, Q's most accomplished hacker, had called him, but Tanner, who had known him from the earliest days of his work for MI6, appeared to think otherwise. Moneypenny clearly had a genuine fondness for him as well, stemming less from any brief intimacy than from their playful, ongoing verbal exchanges and genuine ease in each other's company.

"It's not that I mind looking after him," Moneypenny was saying now, biting her lower lip. "I mean, I get on well with him, always have, in spite of our…unfortunate first assignment together. But this is, um, awkward. We can't guess at how much he's remembered and how much he hasn't, so it's impossible to know how much we can actually tell him."

"Do you mean to say," Q replied, frowning, "that M really views him as a security risk, at present? Thinks he might say or do something to compromise MI6?"

"Not exactly," Moneypenny said, frowning even more mightily than Q. "Not deliberately, anyway. That is, we know he would never do anything—intentionally—to jeopardize staff or operations."

"It's what he could do unintentionally that concerns us," Q said drily. "Oh well! I walked him through Q Branch this morning and in no time at all he had my female staff at high alert. That was entirely intentional, I believe, and something he has not forgotten how to do."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: Testing the Waters**

It was less than a month later that Bond strolled into Moneypenny's domain—the antechamber to M's office—and coolly announced that much of his memory seemed to be coming back to him. According to Tanner, he obediently visited Medical every few days but had been spending most of his convalescence walking about London, working out in the MI6 gymnasium, or reading in the privacy of his flat. He was now cleared to handle an automobile, and his driver's license—confiscated after his injury—had been returned to him with no small degree of trepidation.

"Medical says that was to be expected," Moneypenny responded crisply, although she was smiling with evident pleasure. "You recall your—"

"My past, that is, for the most part. My childhood, student days, my time in the Navy. My first assignments at MI6, before achieving Double O status." Bond paused to adjust his Omega Seamaster and cleared his throat before continuing. "My fellow operatives and colleagues, and my dealings with them…again, only for the most part."

Moneypenny focused on her tablet's keyboard, but her face was faintly flushed. "Whatever that means."

The baize door to the inner sanctum opened and Tanner emerged. "Ah. Bond. You've come to report on…?"

"His memory's returning," Moneypenny said, her cheeks still pink. "I suppose the doctors will want to, um, test him."

"Whatever that means," Bond murmured, parroting her, but his lips curved upward slightly.

Moneypenny's glance flickered in the direction of M's door, and then away. "He remembers his previous assignments," she said in Tanner's direction. "The ones that, um, predate his current Double O standing."

"And your missions since?" Tanner inquired carefully. "There've been quite a few of them."

"Right," said Bond, but did not elaborate. After a lengthy pause, Tanner continued, "This last assignment, for example?"

There was another brief period of silence, and then Bond sat down on the edge of Moneypenny's desk. "I recall my instructions," he said flatly, raising his eyes to meet Tanner's. "My target. The ambush, but not what happened to me. My weapon, which was, I believe, destroyed."

"It went into the river," Tanner murmured. "I think perhaps _you_ did that…to keep it out of your opponent's hands."

"I suppose it was young Q who made it for me? I remember speaking with him before I went overseas, but not much of what we spoke about."

"Er, yes," said Tanner, very nearly smiling. "Very good. M and the doctors will be pleased."

"That young man—Q—he's been with MI6 since the Silva affair, hasn't he?"

"Oh yes," said Moneypenny encouragingly. "Quite right. He has. And I might add that you two do have a tendency to banter and snap at each other."

"Hmm," said Bond, noncommittally, but Tanner made a wry face. "I think that'll do, Eve; we should let him remember that for himself, on his own."

Moneypenny rolled her eyes. "Oh very well, if we're going to be so bloody strict about things…perhaps you'd join us in the small conference room, James? There are some things we should review with you, and I've asked Q to join us, if he's free. He said he _thought_ he could make the time."

Tanner's lips twitched in an aborted grin, but it was Bond's turn to roll his eyes.

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When Q walked into the small conference room—so called because, unlike the other conference chambers, it only seated ten—he found his three colleagues settled at the far end of the rectangular table. Bond's head was bent over a notebook of papers and photographs, while both Tanner and Moneypenny were trying hard not to let him see that they were studying him.

"The girls in the clerical division are praying you'll be cleared for return to duty, sooner rather than later," Moneypenny was saying, a smile hovering on her lips. "In the hopes that they'll be able—to put it bluntly—to share you amongst themselves for a holiday treat."

She had joked about this before, with Q and Tanner, and it was true: the gods only knew how many of the female staff of MI6 would line up to be blessed by 007's cock, given the opportunity.

"There isn't enough of me to go round," Bond replied absently, gazing at the new sheaf of photographs she had just handed him. He stood up, unobtrusively rotating his neck and shoulder muscles, and cast a glance at the river beyond the window. "Aren't there at least twenty ladies in that department?"

"Your recovery is moving along nicely," Moneypenny said dryly. "Although, to be accurate, there are fifteen ladies and five men."

Bond shrugged with little change of expression and leaned nonchalantly against the window frame. There was no question, Q thought sourly, that he took the eye, with his trim but muscular and compact body encased in one of those outrageously perfect, bespoke suits, straw hair brightened by the fitful afternoon sunlight, ice-blue eyes moving from the photographs to the outside world. Q bit his lip and turned his own eyes away.

Tanner had suggested an evening for the four of them at a local pub (per instructions from M, perhaps?), and Q, who had muttered that he saw no reason to be included in this outing, shot a furtive glance at his wristwatch. He was tired, and not in a particularly pub-going mood, but was damned if he was going to bow out and be viewed as a wimp by a high and mighty Double O agent. He might outrank them, technically speaking, but many field agents harbored a remarkable sense of entitlement, not to mention a tendency to regard the tech crowd as deskbound automatons glued to their monitors. So, shortly after six, he walked to the address messaged to him by Moneypenny, and waited a few steps away from the venerable-looking façade until the other three appeared. This was an establishment that, according to Tanner, 007 had frequented in the past. Therefore, it came as no surprise to Q that it was quite upscale, the interior characterized by a great deal of richly polished dark wood and a traditionally masculine décor. The crowd sitting and standing at the bar was sedate, rather than raucous, and Tanner managed to commandeer a booth and settle himself, Moneypenny, Q, and Bond therein.

Bond raised his head, focusing his attention like a bird dog at the scent of a pheasant, and Q noticed the whiffs of what was no doubt excellent pub food.

He looked up when a waiter materialized next to their table. Moneypenny cocked her head to the side and nudged 007 gently in the ribs.

"Are you ready to order?" she asked, eyeing him thoughtfully and then letting out her breath with what sounded like a sigh of relief when Bond responded, almost immediately, with a request for a martini of gin, Grey Goose, and a touch of Lillet Blanc, shaken, and garnished with a twist of lemon peel.*

"Now there's something you haven't forgotten, James," she murmured, patting his wrist as both Tanner and Q raised their eyes to the ceiling.

"I think we should _eat_ ," Tanner said several minutes later, glancing at the generous size of the drinks that had just been deposited in front of them. Q obligingly raised a hand to summon a waiter; as his companions placed their orders, he watched 007's eyes move from his drink to his colleagues to the other patrons of the pub. Bond's glance swept over the small crowd milling by the bar, before returning to their own booth, where, to Q's consternation, it appeared to focus on himself. Or, to be more specific, on his face, his rumpled hair, and then his throat, where the two top buttons of his shirt had been unfastened. It was a relief when a server bore down on their booth with a heavily-laden tray, and Bond turned his attention to the dish that was set before him.

Perhaps it was not surprising that their small group had begun to attract some degree of attention from their fellow pub-goers. Moneypenny, flushed and appetizing in a frock she must have changed into before leaving MI6, was sitting on the outside edge of their booth, and Q could see the faces of quite a few of the pub's clientele turning in her direction. And Bond, after methodically demolishing his meal, stood up and wandered over to the bar, where two young women nursing their drinks surveyed him with approval, and then promptly struck up a conversation with him. One, a tall redhead whose striking natural assets were made even more prominent by the deeply cut neckline of her blouse and a lace-edged, push-up bra, was clearly doing her best to chat him up.

"Well, well, well," Moneypenny said under her breath, and huffed when both Tanner and Q raised their eyebrows at her.

"What does Medical say about him?" Q asked, also under his breath, although Bond was nowhere near close enough to hear what any of them might say. "What about his recovery?"

"He's doing well," Tanner replied in a normal tone of voice. "Memory's returning in bits and pieces. We can't be guaranteed that everything will come back to him, but he might actually be fit for duty in the not too distant future."

"You're joking," Q said, almost indignantly, and Tanner blinked. "How can anybody ask him to go on mission without, well, without a full deck of cards, so to speak."

"He's not lost any mental or intellectual capability," Tanner replied patiently. "And some things—facts, figures, names, and so on—can be relearned. It isn't as if he were physically handicapped in any way."

Q sighed. "And I thought M was concerned he might be a security risk."

Tanner sighed and leaned back against the polished wood of their booth. "Not…exactly. Not openly. What are you suggesting then, that they put him out to pasture?"

"No, of course not, for pity's sake," snapped Q. "It just seems…that is, he'll be at a disadvantage."

"Can you picture Bond retired? Or at a desk job?"

"I don't imagine they'll send him on anything especially hazardous," Moneypenny interjected, fishing in her handbag for lipstick. "That _would_ be unfair. At least, just now."

"Oh bloody hell," said Tanner in an exasperated voice, and Q turned his head. MI6's Chief of Staff was biting his lower lip with annoyance, and Q followed his gaze to the bar where 007 had been standing only moments before. The space he had occupied had been appropriated by somebody else, and Bond and the statuesque redhead were gone.

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If Q were in a cynical frame of mind—and he preferred to think of himself as a skeptic rather than a cynic—he would have said that Bond's foray of the previous night had been undertaken for the sole purpose of making certain all portions of his anatomy were in good working order.

"Is 007 returning to duty, sir?" one of his computer lab subordinates ventured to ask, a day after the pub incident.

"We were just wondering…" murmured Vargas, the second of Q's two senior—albeit youthful—programmers, whimsically known as "R" within the various divisions of Q Branch. (The other top programmer, Michaels, disdained the use of nicknames.)** She was an attractive young woman as well as a technology prodigy, who unconsciously made eyes at every Double O operative she met.

"I don't know," Q said honestly. "I daresay that'll happen eventually." And then he turned a stern eye on his lab staff, hoping this would encourage them not to ask any further questions about the condition of MI6's most notorious operative.

"Yes sir," said Vargas, rather glumly. Q watched as she slunk back to her workstation, and for her sake refrained from smiling at her disappointment. Of course, he had been wondering the very same thing. Tanner had confessed to having no inkling of what Mallory was planning to do about Bond, and Moneypenny also claimed to be in the dark. Therefore, it took all three of them by surprise when, a week later, M decided to test the waters by sending 007 on a very simple mission.

It could hardly even be called a mission; Bond was sent overseas to rendezvous with 002 in Algeria, on the border of the Sahara Desert. There he was to retrieve some intel already collected by his fellow agent, and return with it. Hardly a taxing assignment, and one that normally would be allotted to an agent without Double O status. But it would measure Bond's responses to situations involving secrecy and hidden identities, and assess the likelihood that he would return to duty—in a very real sense—at some time in the near future.

The lightning-fast reflexes for which 007 was renowned within MI6 seemed to be as well-honed as ever. Although his job was essentially of the pickup and delivery type, when an enemy operative materialized quite unexpectedly, his weapon trained on 002, Bond disarmed and disabled the man so quickly that it took a moment for his colleague to realize he had nearly been shot and that 007 had saved him.

Bond then promptly whisked himself and the intel off to the nearest airport, where a flight was awaiting him. Q caught a glimpse of him via the terminal's security camera, still dressed in the local desert garb, his blond hair hidden by the distinctive indigo-dyed headscarf of a Tuareg nomad. Bond looked, Q thought critically, quite handso…er, impressive in this unaccustomed get-up. When he reappeared at HQ a half day later, wearing yet another of his impeccably cut, tailored suits, Q was tempted to offer a snarky comment but refrained when he caught Moneypenny's stern glance from the opposite side of M's antechamber.

"Well, Q," Bond said mildly as he returned his undamaged firearm, radio, and newly augmented Omega Seamaster to the Quartermaster half an hour later, in the small glassed-in office adjacent to the computer lab.

Q squinted at the radio antenna so as not to have to look 007 in the eye. "Thank you. That went well, I think."

"It did."

"So you'll be—?" Q paused, uncertain as to how to continue. Assuming this job had been a test, would M now clear Bond for duty and send him out on a more typical mission?

"I don't know."

"And the heat and motion detectors in your Omega? Did they function up to speed?" Q said hastily, to change the subject. He pushed his wayward fringe out of his eyes, raising them from their scrutiny of the wristwatch to find 007 staring at him, brows drawn together, from the other side of his workstation.

"My God," said Bond in tones of amusement. "That hair."

Q stopped raking his fingers through it. "Yes," he said levelly. "You've spoken about it any number of times before. And about my cardigans, and my age. Now. Shall we return to the matter at hand?"

"Yes of course," replied Bond with mock docility, and Q looked at him sharply. It was plain from his tone of voice that he was finding something extremely entertaining, and as there was nobody else in the room, Q could only assume that it was something he himself had said, or something about his person, that was causing Bond's lips to curl in the faintest of smiles.

And Q was not in the mood for levity, or for being the reason behind Bond's amused expression. So he said nothing, frowning at his keyboard and hoping that Bond would take the hint.

"To answer your question, Q, the watch worked perfectly," Bond said as he turned to leave. "Ah—there is something. Tanner says you lot in Q Branch are working on wearable protection: lightweight bulletproof clothing. I don't suppose you could make me a dinner jacket, could you?"

"For you?" Q retorted, hoping 007 spoke in jest. In all honesty, he would welcome a return to their usual, snarky verbal fencing. "Unless you can convince a Savile Row tailor to relocate to MI6, I'd say that's highly unlikely."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Q heard about Bond's next mission from M himself, and noted that Mallory sounded almost as displeased with the nature of it as Q was.

007 was to locate a rogue CIA operative and former MI5 agent, now living in America, named Endora Mills. He was to pose as an informant to gain her confidence, assemble any intel she had in her keeping, and then bring her in for questioning.

The distasteful aspect of the assignment was that 002—with the help of some temporary cosmetic alterations—was being dispatched to shadow Bond throughout the entire procedure, without his knowledge, and to report back to HQ at regular intervals. In other words, he was to determine whether Bond was still completely trustworthy and immune to offers of any kind. It was almost certain that Miss Mills would offer a substantial monetary bribe, once Bond, mission accomplished, revealed his identity, and almost equally certain that she would make an offer of her magnificently-endowed self.

Q had seen Endora Mills' photograph, and had to admit that she was, er…

"Oh, that slut," Moneypenny said _sotto voce_ , wrinkling her nose when she heard about the assignment.

Bond himself appeared in Q's office that afternoon and received his Walther, his radio, now miniaturized to the size of a thumbnail, his watch, and some equally miniscule wireless listening devices

"What have you found out about Endora Mills, Q? Tanner says we have a basic timeline on her, that is, on her activities, but very little knowledge of what she does when she isn't out in the world killing people."

"It wasn't difficult to find out something about her," Q countered, holding out a USB memory stick. "You'll find it all on here. From social media."

"Really?" Bond drawled, perching on the edge of Q's desk without asking permission. "She can't possibly be that careless. She keeps a Facebook or Instagram under her own name?"

"No, but it wasn't difficult to find her alias, or determine her likes and dislikes. Social media—Facebook, for example—have algorithms that curate what we see on their websites and our newsfeed pages. Based on sites we've visited, or postings we've 'liked.' I'm sure you're well aware of this, 007. Why do you think Eve finds scores of postings from animal rescue organizations on her newsfeed every day, whereas my assistant, Mr Michaels, receives posts from an assortment of singles' clubs."

"Yes," Bond responded, with a faintly curled lip. "Even dinosaurs like myself are familiar with this technology."

"It wasn't difficult to find Endora Mills' social media accounts, though she goes by another name, naturally. We know where she is now even though her mobile's untraceable, and we know the sort of place she frequents when she isn't working on an assignment, um—"

"On an assassination," Bond finished for him, smoothly. "Just give me the coordinates, then. I'll be off after I've seen M."

The whole idea of this mission was making Q feel a little sick. That 007 was to be spied on by 004, one of his own colleagues, was an unpleasant situation, to say the least. Q could understand M's reasoning; that is, he could understand it from an objective point of view, but all the same! He had known Bond for a year, and nothing about the man had ever suggested that he might—even in his present condition—accidentally let slip a piece of vital information to anyone not cleared to receive it, or go rogue and reveal classified intel to anybody willing to purchase it. He might be wayward and unpredictable, apt to drop off the grid whenever it suited him, blithely irreverent when it came to his handlers, superiors, and retrieval protocols at the close of a mission. But nobody had ever questioned his loyalty.

So it was with secret satisfaction that Q, overseeing this assignment via the comm link in Bond's ear, witnessed 007's textbook execution of the entire mission. Everything went perfectly according to plan. Except, of course, for the fact that Bond dropped out of sight for a week, once everything was over, and then reappeared in London, tanned, rested, and patently unrepentant.

"Don't you realize how concerned everyone was for your safety?" Moneypenny almost shouted at him when he reported to M for debriefing. "Didn't you even think…that is, we had no idea what could have happened to you."

"I suppose you've been sitting on a beach with a tall drink and an acquiescent female," Tanner added in much less heated tones. A grin had transformed his normally impassive features, in spite of, or perhaps because of, Moneypenny's wrath. "Eve, you've been here a year; you should be accustomed to this sort of thing by now."

Moneypenny glared at both Tanner and Bond, but subsided, lips pressed tightly together. Q, who had not thought for a moment that Bond had been kidnapped or killed, simply said, "Congratulations on a mission well completed," and went back to Q Branch to await the return of 007's tech.

Shortly thereafter, Bond appeared in Q's office, a cup of black coffee in one hand, and deposited undamaged equipment on his desk with an expression that verged on smugness. The Quartermaster gave him an appraising look.

"Incredible, 007, there's not a mark on them." He examined the Walther's palm print-encoded grip plates with a critical eye. "I take it you achieved your goal without the use of force."

"I did, yes," said Bond casually. He rested both hands on the surface of the desk. "And without the use of romantic blandishments as well, thank the gods."

Q couldn't help it; something resembling a chortle burst from his lips. "You mean she had no interest in you…in that way."

Bond essayed a genuine grin. "Evidently not. Not in the slightest."

Q allowed himself the faintest of grins in return. "So much for 007's legendary seduction techniques and, er, personal charisma."

Bond shrugged good-naturedly. "Yes." He set his coffee down near the edge of the desk and gave Q a little sideways look. "The latter must be in sad need of refurbishment. As it doesn't appear to be producing the desired effect."

"Oh?" murmured Q, a little sarcastically, eyebrows raised. "With whom?" Then he caught himself and said, rather reluctantly, "Sorry…not my business, I know."

Bond's glance in his direction was difficult to read, and when he said simply, "Perhaps it is," in that infuriatingly calm voice, Q was caught between irritation and a feeling he preferred not to acknowledge. He continued to fiddle with his electronic clipboard, reviewing procedures for 008's upcoming mission, until he heard 007 clear his throat.

"Q."

"Hmm?" Q raised his head, blinking a little with fatigue.

"I don't suppose you'd have dinner with me, Quartermaster?"

Q, completely taken aback, gave a startled glance in Bond's direction. "No," he said after a moment's pause, during which he noted, with horror, his accelerated pulse rate. "I don't suppose I would."

Although there was no change in 007's calm expression, Q realized that his terse reply must have taken _Bond_ aback, somewhat, and he allowed his voice to soften discernably.

"That is, thank you, and I'm sorry, but I think it's perhaps not the best of ideas."

"To have _dinner_ with me?"

"Well, um," Q floundered, wishing Moneypenny, or Tanner, or _somebody_ would come in. "I don't, um, generally socialize with my agents. Outside of work, that is. Although it's not an official directive, we're not encouraged to form friendships with operatives."

"Friendships," said Bond in a dry, unreadable voice.

"It's been the opinion of most of the Ms that employee friendships result in emotional investment, something that could jeopardize effective communication during a mission."

"You sound as if you're quoting a rulebook, Q," Bond murmured with what appeared to be amusement.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

It was interesting, James Bond mused, watching his Quartermaster turn away, hazel-green eyes veiled and shoulders stiff, this refusal to have dinner with him.

His gradually returning memories were beginning to coalesce nicely, and he remembered past interactions with Q at MI6, remembered meeting him for the first time at the National Gallery. He took in the young man's physical presence, more or less unchanged since that first, mildly testy encounter: medium height, slight and slim, with the narrow torso and long legs of a dancer, the ambiguous gaze of someone well-suited to a career in espionage. This combination of features was oddly appealing.

If his memory—shaky as it still might be—was correct, he had never had a great deal of sexual interest in men. There had been one or two exceptions—Alec Trevelyan, the former 006, for example, and the two of them had never done anything beyond eyeing one another appraisingly. Of course there had been several male marks, seduced and fucked in the line of duty: experiences that had been interesting, vaguely satisfactory on a physical if not emotional level, and not in any way memorable. Women had always been his sexual partners of choice, both on mission and in private life, and—save for the late Vesper Lynd—none of his connections with them had involved commitment. Why, then, this unquestionably carnal interest in the young Quartermaster of MI6? Why did he seem to recall a sense of urgency, physical sensations, if not actual events?

"Q."

Q turned halfway round, but wouldn't look at him, focusing instead on his staff, bent diligently over their keyboards on the other side of the glass wall separating him from the computer lab. Bond shot a surreptitious look at Q's boyish, rather sulky profile, the little ripple in the line of his nose, the long, elegant rise of his nape above the collar of that tedious cardigan. That dark, riotous hair. He acknowledged the young man's professionalism, his sense of ethics, but to the best of his (slowly returning) memory, MI6 personnel were not forbidden to see one another, to use an ancient euphemism, outside of work. His sixth sense told him that Q found him attractive and was doing his utmost to hide the fact.

"Have you always been this uncompromising?" Bond murmured with a touch of asperity. Q finally turned to face him, and Bond frowned, suppressing the mental images that suddenly sprang to life: of himself and Q alone in his bedroom, Q's bedroom, _any bloody fucking bedroom_. Of the gleam of his Quartermaster's pale olive skin after Bond peeled off that wretched cardigan, the shirt and tie, the narrow trousers. The flutter of his black lashes beneath Bond's lips; the touch of his slim, sensitive, long-fingered hands.

And why was it that these images were so clear, so vivid? The only way, Bond reasoned, to determine the reason behind his state of mind was to go to the source, as it were.

"Q," he said again, and this time Q turned to face him. "If I should have any questions about our past collaboration on assignments and the like, I suppose you can answer them for me…if you have leave to do so."

"You can trust me, 007," Q said tiredly. "You have my word. And if that's not good enough, ask Tanner."

"Tanner said I can trust you."

Q sat quietly, waiting, while Bond considered his next statement, his lips compressed and brows drawn together. As he mulled over his words, he could sense that the Quartermaster was fighting the urge to fidget.

"I'm remembering," he said quietly, somewhat put out to hear a hint of strain in his own voice. "Things. In bits and pieces. They don't seem to return in any sort of order. The memories, that is."

"The doctor told you that might happen. That it would all come together, eventually." Q's expression clearly said that he knew about the absence of guarantees from Medical, and it was equally obvious that he was schooling himself to speak gently. "Just be patient."

Bond frowned. "Easy for you to say." Then he cleared his throat and looked Q directly in the eyes. "Q. If you wouldn't mind. A rather personal question."

"What is it, then," Q muttered with a distinctly wary expression. "And no, I don't exactly mind, but since when have we ever spoken about anything that could be considered personal?"

"Have you been quite truthful with me, Q?" Bond's tone of voice was now dry and faintly ironic, and he saw Q eye him assessingly, frowning a little in turn.

"Hmm. What? I don't believe I've ever told you a falsehood. What does this have to do with personal—"

"Then there's never been anything…between us?"

"No," snapped Q, looking genuinely startled, and narrowing his eyes with the beginnings of a scowl.

Bond raised an eyebrow. "Then why—?"

"Why what, 007?"

"Why do I have the distinct impression…that there has been intimacy of some sort, between you and me?"

"What makes you even think there was…was…" Q said sharply as a blush suddenly tinged his hollow cheeks with color. "Your memory may be faulty, but I see your ego's still intact."

"Ah," murmured Bond, calmly. "Just as I thought."

"Just as you…just as you bloody thought, what?" Q asked coldly, and Bond could tell that he was repressing the urge to raise his hands to his crimson face. "What gives you the impression—"

"You've gone all red, Quartermaster."

"Naturally. This conversation is highly embarrassing, to say the least. I don't know what, um, made you think we've, um, whatever it was you were thinking, but there's been nothing."

Bond shot him a look of mild disbelief. "Then why do I appear to have…memories, if you could call them that. Involving you."

Q gave a faint hiss of exasperation. "I don't sleep with my colleagues, 007. And what makes you assume, may I ask, that I have a sexual preference for men?"

"Don't you?"

Q took a deep breath. "My preferences are hardly relevant."

"They are at the moment." Bond held up both hands as if to ward off whatever icy retort was on the tip of his Quartermaster's tongue. "Sorry. I didn't mean to upset you."

"I am not _upset_ ," Q said between clenched teeth. "I am simply perplexed. I have never made advances towards you, of any kind. Nor have you made any to me. Am I to assume, from your…your faulty memories that you have developed an, um, interest in me that goes beyond the professional?"

Bond cocked an eyebrow at this, and shrugged his shoulders. "Believe me, Quartermaster, I didn't _choose_ to have these thoughts."

"Then I can only surmise that you have lost your sanity, 007," Q said with a sudden, unexpected flash of humour.

"And these memories…or whatever they are? Nothing time-specific, of course. Of you and—"

"False ones, obviously," said Q hastily, before Bond could elaborate on their content. "Or, um, fantasies. Although why you should have f…fantasies about, er…"

"This er-umming is entirely unlike you," Bond murmured, one corner of his mouth twitching in the briefest of smiles. "Or perhaps the topic in question is beyond your area of expertise."

Q lips tightened and he shot Bond a look that blended intense annoyance with tired frustration. There was a handsome crystal paperweight on his desk, next to his monitor, and Bond wondered idly whether he was longing to hurl this object in the direction of his interrogator's head. "Stop trying to needle me, 007. Or you can give up all hope of anything resembling a bulletproof dinner jacket. Now, about that data you removed from Endora Mills' camera phone…"

* * *

 *** Slightly, but only slightly, different from the Vesper, the variation on the martini invented by Bond in the novel and the film Casino Royale.**

 **** There was a Michaels on the computer lab staff in Skyfall.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: Just Who is Q?**

"Why is the Quartermaster's name classified information?" Bond asked Moneypenny during a lull in activity, an unusual state of affairs in M's anteroom. It was the middle of the day, and many of the staff had gone off in search of sustenance.

Moneypenny widened her eyes at him. "You really don't remember? I think that happened around the time old Geoffrey Boothroyd retired." She returned her attention to the sandwich and glass of iced tea on her desk. "Just after the explosion at HQ."

"Thank you. No, I didn't recall that piece of information. Is there anyone else with a similar…absence of identity?"

"Oh, there are a number of others, why?" Moneypenny replied. "The armourer who manufactures some of Q's larger-scale devices according to his specifications. Several agents who've been abroad in deep cover, for many years, and are living under assumed names as ordinary citizens in those, um, foreign countries."

"Do you know who they are?"

"No, of course I don't," said Moneypenny somewhat testily. The odd holes in Bond's memory were gradually diminishing, but all the same, they made for some awkward conversations. "Why so curious? Does it have something to do with Q?"

Bond very nearly blinked at her astuteness, but maintained a poker-faced expression. "Hardly."

"He interests you, doesn't he," Moneypenny continued, still astute. "You always have found him intriguing. Well, you're not the only one; I suppose most of us do. That is, he's so young, but sharp as someone with more than twice his experience. Not afraid to experiment. Cool as a cucumber. He's done well by the field agents; they used to think he was a supercilious little git, but they all appreciate him now."

"Ah," said Bond, who, as far as he could remember, had never bothered to take note of what his fellow operatives thought about the Quartermaster.

"And beneath all that prickly standoffishness and cold tech talk, he's really a dear," Moneypenny chattered on. "Most of the girls in Q Branch adore him. Not that he's ever given them any encouragement. I suppose—" And then she stopped, and her eyes narrowed as she stared at Bond, her look both thoughtful and vaguely accusatory.

"What?" Bond said, rolling his own eyes, but she fell silent, brow furrowed, before suddenly looking up at him again with a little smile.

"If you need him for something, I believe he's in the computer lab. He rarely takes a lunch break," she added in explanation. "Although he and Tanner may be up to another of their swordfights."

"Their _what_?" said Bond, both eyebrows raised.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Q and Tanner eyed one another intently across their raised foils. Both were fencing enthusiasts—as well as diehard history fans and theatre aficionados—and they occasionally indulged in a fencing match during their lunch hour, or, if time permitted, their afternoon tea break. After gulping down mugs of Q's Earl Grey, they would repair to one of the makeshift practice rooms set up in The Bunker and go at one another with foils, and, if they were in the mood for it, practice sabres.*

"A pity we can't try broadswords," muttered Tanner, an amateur medievalist in his very limited free time.** He raised the guard of his foil to chin height in salute.

"I don't know that I could even lift a broadsword," Q replied, examining his mask. "And you can't fight a proper duel with one of those things. Too heavy."

"Right," said Tanner regretfully. "Too bulky. _En garde!_ "

For the next few minutes neither spoke but moved back and forth within the harshly-lit space, attacking and parrying. Q was lighter on his feet, and quick, but Tanner had a slightly greater reach, and, in spite of being more heavily built than his opponent, a flexible posture and good staying power. They registered the click of the door opening, but neither turned to look, and a moment later Q, giving ground slightly, backed into something—someone—solid who gave a muted "Oof!" at the contact.

"Oh!" said Q in turn, and spun round to find 007 adjusting his jacket, with Moneypenny—trying valiantly not to laugh—behind him.

"Sorry," said Q in an acid tone of voice. The collision with Bond's midsection had given the phrase "rock-hard abs" an entirely new dimension in his mind. "You know better than to stand so close to combat, 007."

"I've never really thought of a fencing match as combat," Bond retorted mildly. "Who was winning, then?"

Tanner grimaced. "It's usually a draw," he murmured, dragging off his mask and dabbing at his thinning hairline with a handkerchief. "Q's good; he's actually beaten me twice."

"Three times," protested Q, panting a little. "But Bill's won a score of matches, at least. He's better."

Tanner shook his head. "We're well matched." He set down his foil and leaned against the wall to catch his breath. "You needed one of us for something, Bond?"

"Not exactly," drawled Bond, looking from one to the other of the combatants. "I was simply intrigued when Eve told me about your periodic ventures into dueling. I made her bring me down to have a look."

Tanner grimaced again, a little shamefacedly. "We only do this on our off-hours, or during afternoon break. A good workout for us deskbound types."

"Really," said Bond, lifting one of the discarded foils and studying it. "Perhaps one of you will give me a match."

"Hah!" murmured Tanner with a half-smile, and Q took a step backward and said, "Not likely."

But Bond was already removing his jacket, which he placed with care on the back of the room's solitary, rickety chair.

"Let's see how much I remember," he said dryly, glancing from Tanner to Q. "Consider it part of my re-education. I may have forgotten entirely how to use a blade."

"I doubt it," said Q, eyeing him with suspicion. "I'll let Bill have a bash."

"No, not me," Tanner said hastily. "I'm due upstairs anyway. M will be expecting me. You can take him, Q, come on. Win one for the non-combatant deskbound staff, will you?"

For all that M was expecting him, he loitered in the doorway with Moneypenny, watching as Bond appropriated a spare mask and hefted the foil experimentally.

"Bloody hell!" said Q viciously, under his breath, and reached for his own abandoned foil. He was fully aware that Bond would almost certainly beat him, and he was going to look a fool, a gangly boffin going up against a Double O in the antiquated art of swordplay. Anger gave him the nerve to stand calmly, facing Bond, until Tanner helpfully called out, " _En garde_ ," and their foils flashed in the briefest of salutes.

Q opened with a thrust in prime, just to test Bond's reaction, and then retreated when Bond parried it easily before advancing in riposte. Within less than a minute, Q could tell that he was good, probably better than Tanner, that he had forgotten _bloody nothing_ , and that, unless he could focus on his counterattack, this bout was going to be over in a matter of seconds.

Bond's blade whipped past him, grazing his side, and Q found himself wishing that he and Tanner hadn't chosen to forgo padding. Seconds later, Bond lunged forward, aiming (naturally!) for the kill point on the upper torso, and Q just managed to parry the thrust. They were both breathing hard and fast now, but Bond—damn him to hell!—had started to grin. Q's fringe fell forward into his eyes and he shook his head fiercely; Bond stepped back and politely dropped his point so that Q could shove the hair back from his brow. " _En garde_ ," snapped Q, and they recommenced.

For several minutes they continued the pattern of attack, parry, riposte; Q feinted several times in the hope of drawing Bond in, so that he could dive under his opponent's guard and score a hit. 007 was easily faster than anybody else Q had ever fenced with, and as he backed away once more, blinking sweat from his eyes, Bond lunged towards him again. Q saw the point of the foil coming, high and straight for the heart, and he flung his own blade upward in desperation, deflecting Bond's blade to the side with a half-circle parry, while the tip of his own foil came to rest—by miracle? luck? accident?—at the base of 007's throat.

Q drew a deep, sobbing breath and dropped his foil, nearly doubling over with the need for oxygen. Tanner's habitually stoic expression had given way to something resembling a lively enthusiasm, and Moneypenny was looking from one to the other of them with a bright, congratulatory smile.

Q gulped air and peeped at Bond through his lowered eyelashes. He had expected annoyance, at the very least, on his opponent's part, but 007 was still grinning, more broadly than Q had ever seen him, and his eyes were bright with what looked like rueful approval.

"Oh well done, Q," he said, bending over and resting his hands on his thighs. A light sheen of perspiration glinted on his brow but he straightened up within seconds, not looking, to Q's eye, particularly winded. "Shall we try that again, once I've caught my breath?"

"Dear God, no," Q managed to say, massaging his aching wrist as he slumped, still breathless, against the nearest wall. "Another minute and I would have collapsed, and you'd have won by default."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Interesting, isn't it," Moneypenny was saying as she and Bond made their way back to her post in M's anteroom. "I believe they do that fairly often. And I hadn't realized Q was so good. Or perhaps it's only that you're a trifle rusty, James."

Bond gave her a sardonic glance. "Thanks." He clenched and unclenched his right hand, and then looked at it, frowning. "It'll come back to me." Then, "I didn't recall that Tanner and Q were so congenial."

"They get on well," Moneypenny replied. "The three of us occasionally go out for a drink after hours."

"I don't suppose they…" he continued, the inflection of his voice making it plain what he was referring to.

"Oh no, no, no," Moneypenny murmured, amused. "You _really_ don't remember? Tanner has a wife and children. Straight as an arrow, and doesn't play the field. As for Q, nobody really knows what his, er, what he does with his time off." She turned her head and gave Bond a curious look. "Well…we can guess, but we could be wrong. About his preferences, that is."

"Does anybody know anything about him?"

"I imagine so. I'll hazard Tanner does. M, of course. Thanks," she added, as Bond held open a door for her. "Now. What makes you so curious about the Quartermaster, all of a sudden?"

"I'm not due for another of those psych sessions, am I?" Bond said, abruptly changing the subject. "Tedious things. They should learn to vary their line of questioning."

"So should you, James," Moneypenny said drily, looking at him sideways.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Baby steps," Tanner announced, somewhat later that afternoon. "He's easing you back into things."

Bond exhaled slowly. "M has doubts about me, doesn't he?"

"Not doubts," Tanner replied firmly. "Just…he wants to be certain you're quite ready, before he hands you the, well, you know—"

"The sort of assignment he used to consider me right for."

Tanner cleared his throat. "Precisely. Medical's delivering a report on you, today. Anyway…this latest thing he's sending you on…it sounds more like the usual mission."

"Berlin," said Bond, shrugging. "It's odd. I have clear memories of the city itself—parts of it are quite striking and impressive—but what I did there, exactly, still evades me somewhat."

M's Chief of Staff glanced at him quickly, and then away, and Bond nearly flinched at the concern he saw in his colleague's eyes.

"This should be of assistance." Tanner handed over a CD in its protective plastic case. "Everything about your previous activities in Berlin is summarized here. I'll let you know what the verdict is, from Medical, as soon as I hear. And don't forget to see Q before you leave."

"No, of course not," Bond said flatly. "I'll see him now. What do you suppose he'll supply me with this time?"

"Oh, he may be in a generous, giving frame of mind," Tanner replied with a brief smile. "Seeing how he beat you at fencing. Almost any agent here would be walking on air, if they were in his shoes."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Why do I keep repeating myself, with you?" Bond said with mock resignation when Q handed him his gun, radio, and a small, metallic cylinder with holes on one side. "Not exactly Christmas, is it…again?"

"I see you still recall our very first conversation, 007…and there's no reason to expect a knapsack full of weaponry and electronic toys," Q replied briskly. They were standing by his workstation in the computer lab and his minions were doing their best to look as though they weren't staring. "Look, this will give you about five minutes of oxygen, in the event that you're in a space without any, or with hazardous gas, or something along those lines. Here's how it works."***

He held the cylinder in a horizontal position and raised it to his lips. "You breathe through those holes on the side, there."

"Hmm," said Bond in a noncommittal voice.

"You're going into a storage facility for toxic materials," Q said, a little defensively. "You may need it."

"Yes, of course," Bond replied, examining the object, which was slightly smaller than a good cigar. "Thank you. And also for that practice bout, earlier. I trust it wasn't too hard on you."

" _Oh_ ," said Q gloomily. "You _let_ me win." His mouth drooped, and for a moment he looked so much like a disappointed child that Bond restrained a smile.

"No, I didn't, I promise. And your technique's quite good, I was impressed."

Q gave an almost inaudible snort and turned his back, ostensibly to check his monitor, across which a stream of data was making its way. "Your papers, passport, and reservations are in order. Eve's even added a list of restaurants and locations of interest…in the event that your mark's arrival in Berlin is delayed."

"Considerate of her."

"I've been to some very good restaurants in Berlin," Q said absently as he slid Bond's falsified passport into an envelope. "And of course they have excellent museums."

"Ah," Bond said, taking the extended envelope and slipping it into his jacket. "Yes, they do. Perhaps we could discuss them over dinner, if you have the time."

Q gave him a startled look and blinked several times. "Um."

"Someplace local. I've been told the food at The Merrimack is quite passable."

"And quite overpriced." Q turned away from his now openly curious computer lab staff and eyed Bond severely. "007. I thought we were clear on this matter. It isn't the best—"

"—the best of ideas. So you said. But it doesn't necessarily follow that I agree with you."

Q's eyes darkened and he folded his arms across his chest in the classic pose of polite rejection.

"Having a meal together is hardly flying in the face of company policy, Q. Nor does it have to mean anything…untoward, if that's what you're thinking."

Q gave him an icy look. "I wasn't thinking any such thing, Bond." He stepped farther away from his lab staff and lowered his voice. "In spite of what you've said before, about your…your faulty memories of, er… I don't really flatter myself that you could find me interesting in any respect beyond the professional."

It was clear that the Quartermaster—whether he found Bond interesting or not—was not going to be easy to convince. To convince about what? That dinner together would be a completely innocuous event? That Bond wouldn't see to it that, after dinner, they ended up in his flat, or Q's, where he could talk _(_ _talk?_ _)_ Q out of that cardigan, and everything else he was wearing, and into a bed, or onto a sofa, or even the bloody floor (if there happened to be a carpet handy). Well, Bond had time, and the advantage of working in relative proximity to the object of his interest on a regular basis. Once he was completely cleared by Medical, and returned to his normal routine of assignments, that is. Of course he was not a genuine predator, and would desist if it became obvious that Q actually disliked him. Which he didn't think was the case. He could be patient—sort of—and he had tenacity, not to mention stubbornness.

"I," said the Quartermaster, breaking into Bond's thoughts with his beautifully enunciated tenor, "am every bit as stubborn as you are."

What a little mind reader. Q had turned his head and Bond looked at him steadily, ignoring his Quartermaster's growing frown. Intense curiosity was beginning to get the better of him; beyond ordinary arousal he was intrigued by that closed, bony face, those hazel-green eyes above high cheekbones, those thin, mobile lips. Good-looking, yes, but in a waifish rather than a masculine way, and the eyes beneath straight, black brows, and that deeply pink mouth, were unquestionably inviting. Or they would be, if Q's expression were a bit less wary. And wouldn't he like to get his hands into that astonishing hair.

Wisps of the astonishing hair were now pointing towards the ceiling, where Q had run his fingers through them. A few of the computer lab minions giggled, but their mirth was clearly affectionate rather than scornful.

Q cleared his throat twice. "Was there anything else you needed to discuss, 007? Because I've a meeting with my armourer in less than half an hour, and…" He gestured at the printouts scattered across his workstation.

"Thank you, Quartermaster," Bond said calmly, putting his tech into the custom-designed case Q had made for it. Then he gave a brief but quite amiable smile. "I think you've told me everything I need to know—for the present."

"You know that Medical's cleared you?" Tanner said, entering the room with his electronic tablet under one arm. "They seem to think you're fit for full-time duty. Any blanks in the, er, memory can be dealt with through re-education. At least that's what they keep calling it. Oh—Q, I forgot to mention. Eve's actually found a Mayfair tailor willing to design a prototype for a protective-wear dinner jacket…at an exorbitant price, naturally. Why can't you field agents be satisfied with an off-the-peg garment as a model? If the taxpayers only knew that they're funding your evening wear."

* * *

* In the role that made him a stage star at 23, Ben Whishaw (Q), as Hamlet, had a fencing match with Rory Kinnear (Tanner), as Laertes.

** Rory Kinnear got suited up in medieval armor for his role as Bolingbroke in the 2012 filmed production of _Richard II_ (in which Ben Whishaw played Richard).

*** A gadget similar to this was featured in the 1965 Bond film _Thunderball_.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: Embroidered Waistcoats and Tricorne Hats**

All right, Berlin was home to one of the best symphonic orchestras in the world. It was a mecca for museum goers and art historians for its famous Egyptian bust of Queen Nefertiti, in the Neues Museum, and the huge, imposing Babylonian Ishtar Gate, in the Pergamon Museum. Visitors strolled along the fabled Unter den Linden boulevard, and posed for photos and selfies under the Brandenburg Gate. Having no interest in the usual tourist activities, Bond took himself off to the Grunewald, the forest in what had once been West Berlin, where he could review his course of action with regard to his mission—his contact and his mark would not be arriving in the city for two days—and otherwise be alone with his thoughts.

Bond supposed that he adhered to the stereotype of men of action, in that he was not given to a great deal of introspection. He might dive into an assignment with a steely-eyed focus, but plumbing his own psychological depths was something he avoided like poison. Since entering the secret service he had made an effort, in fact, to think as little about his past life, and his own personal demons, as possible. His early education abroad, whose most lasting benefit was his fluent French and German.* The fractured childhood following his parents' deaths, a series of guardians, the all too brief years of kindness from his Aunt Charmian Bond. Eton, from which he had been sent down.** His stint at Cambridge, followed by the Royal Navy.** Early years at MI6, working at with an M who, in some peculiar way, had become a parent surrogate, at least in his own mind. The tragedy of his liaison with Vesper Lynd. The meaningless parade of paramours who had preceded her and followed her, all of them attractive, sexually adventurous women with (and he had made certain of this) no real desire for commitment. The marks he had seduced while on assignment, most of them female. None of his partners, save Vesper, had made much of an impact on his psyche or his sentiments.

Like any other operative with common sense, he had shied away from romantic involvement with colleagues at MI6. That is, he had shied away in general; his short-lived interlude with Eve Moneypenny had been lighthearted entertainment for them both, and had done nothing to destroy their good working relations and friendly, if rather snark-laden, interaction. Bond's past communications with Q had been snarky as well, if he remembered correctly. And now, thoughts of that cool-headed, mop-haired individual, whose dark hazel-green eyes challenged him through those heavy-rimmed glasses, were beginning to come between him and his sleep.

He had accepted the Q's assurances that there had never been anything of a physical nature between them, in spite of the frustrating curiosity and sexual interest that continued to disturb him. Had he subconsciously desired the young man before his injury and partial memory loss? Would there be genuine outrage, he mused bleakly, if it became known that he wanted to go to bed with his Quartermaster? He supposed there would be strong disapproval all round, and he had no real certainty—apart from a sense that Q was not indifferent to him—that his efforts in that direction would meet with success.

It really was not the done thing, in the secret service, to attempt the seduction of one's superior (or anybody else on staff at the agency), after all.

Fortunately for Bond's peace of mind, his contact made landfall in Berlin a day early. There was, thankfully, no need to wine and dine her continuously to win her approval or assistance. Monika Silberhaus—a chestnut haired beauty of his own age—was more than willing to help him gain entry to the storage facility for hazardous materials built at a secret location by Bond's target, a rogue entrepreneur, for the purpose of manufacturing weapons of biological warfare. She also expected no payment for her aid, having an ax to grind with said entrepreneur, a real estate mogul with an underground career as a weapons dealer and manager of a squad of hit men. She did, however, seem to expect Bond to devote at least one evening to having sex with her, a prospect Bond found entirely agreeable. It took his mind off, well, other things, and when she strode into his hotel room, flinging off her coat to reveal herself bare-breasted and clad only in a pearl necklace and black lace panties, he had no difficulty in living up to her expectations. In any event, her enthusiastic response reassured him that his fabled skill as a lover had lost none of its edge.

Fraulein Silberhaus was as good as her word; she wanted revenge of some sort on the mogul, and getting well and truly fucked by James Bond was icing on the cake. Within two days she had introduced Bond—in the guise of an interested party—to the rogue businessman (a British national living in Germany) and the small number of prospective buyers who were circling him like the proverbial flies at a honeypot. Once Bond identified the location of the warehouse, it only remained to apprehend the entrepreneur…or terminate him if capture proved too difficult. As it happened, this unscrupulous character was personally responsible for the death of the MI6 agent who had first uncovered his illegal activities, so Bond had no real qualms about putting an end to him. And, as he quickly discovered, the man was also a small arms enthusiast, a self-confident amateur marksman quick to reach for the custom-made pistol in the pocket of his tailor-made jacket.

The gunfight was brief, wealth and self-confidence not guaranteeing deadly proficiency, and Bond experienced a kind of cold satisfaction when his opponent dropped to the ground with a resounding thud. Less than a day later he was on his way back to London, the dismantling of the storage facility and prototypes for biological weapons having been turned over to the appropriate authorities.

"Mission concluded," he said to Q over the comm link. "It was, as the Americans say, a piece of cake."

"I thought it would be, 007," replied Q from his workstation in The Bunker. "I trust you'll return your equipment in an undamaged state."

"Completely intact," Bond murmured. "How's the dinner jacket coming along?"

"It's being worked on as we speak," Q said stiffly. "The inner lining is proof against fire, small caliber bullets, and sharp-edged instruments or projectiles. We've chosen an outer material that resists marks and stains of any kind. You can rest assured that we've tested the lapels with five different brands of lipstick."

"Thoughtful of you," said Bond, and broke off contact.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"A what, sir?" said Bond blankly, staring across the polished expanse of M's desk. "A _costume ball_?"

"Yes," replied M wearily, drumming his fingers on the file in front of him. "Sounds bloody silly, doesn't it? And it's in Paris, with guests coming from the four corners of the globe, worse luck. Our counterparts in France have requested our presence, as the event is being hosted by the British Embassy at some bloody great mansion. The French will have their own people there, no doubt, but they, er, asked for someone from our side who has a flawless command of the language."

"008 speaks excellent French," said Bond mildly. "If I remember correctly."

"Don't try my patience, 007," was the reply. "We're sending _you_."

Bond reached for the file folder M slid across the desk to him. "Is it to do with an exchange of intel?"

"Not exactly," M said, sounding even more weary. "The French think there's an assassination in the works. Just read through that by this afternoon, would you? And although it's hardly the usual sort of thing, Q Branch will provide you with a costume."

"Really, sir," said Bond, fighting the urge to say something sarcastic. "You'll never convince me that the _Quartermaster_ has anything resembling fashion expertise."

"If you're trying to be entertaining, 007," M responded with his habitually deadpan stare, "I'm afraid you've not succeeded. That will be all."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Moneypenny found the whole thing very amusing, and told Bond so.

"Fancy you in a period costume," she said when he emerged from M's office with a rather wry expression on his face.

Bond sighed just a little histrionically.

"You'd be quite fetching in a Louis XIV wig," she added, smiling.

Tanner, who had just entered the room with a mug raised to his lips, inhaled a mouthful of tea and had to be thumped on the back while he coughed loudly and repeatedly.

"Now, now, Bill," Moneypenny said sympathetically, handing him a box of tissues. "We all know James doesn't like to be laughed at."

"I wasn't laughing at him, precisely," Tanner said weakly, mopping at his eyes. "Just the…the notion of 007 in one of those outrageous, curly wigs."

"Perhaps Q Branch will come up with something ingenious," Moneypenny said. "A foppish eighteenth-century walking stick that shoots tranquilizer pellets or something."

"I don't know that there'll be a need to tranquilize anybody," Bond retorted grimly. "And why are you fixated on the eighteenth century? Couldn't I dress as a present-day politician?"

"Oh how deadly boring," Moneypenny snapped. "That would hardly qualify as a costume. Anyway, Q Branch has been tasked with devising something. I suggest you speak with Q and find out what he thinks."

"I have an old pre-Napoleanic era dueling sword you might borrow, if necessary," Tanner added and watched 007's eyes roll towards the ceiling as he headed for the door.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Eighteenth century," Q said calmly, paying little attention to Bond's deepening frown. "No, not Louis XIV. Louis XV, I think."

"What's the difference?" Bond muttered in long-suffering tones. "And why that?"

"As you're being deployed to France," Q replied with no change of expression, "I think it's entirely appropriate. You'll want to fit in. There should be quite a few King Louis, Richelieus, and Madame de Pompadours, not to mention Marie Antoinettes, at this ball."

"Lovely," said Bond, sarcasm finally getting the better of him. "I'll just dress as one of the Revolutionary mob, shall I?"

Some of the computer lab staff stifled guffaws, but Q ignored him. "We have a man on staff who can run something up at short notice. Complete with hidden pockets for weaponry and any necessary tech, and accommodations for a shoulder holster. He has access to that museum, what's it called, the Costume Institute, and can copy something from there." He ticked items off on his fingers. "Embroidered waistcoat and coat. Breeches. Stockings. Oh, a mask, naturally."

"Naturally," said Bond resignedly.

"A jabot…or is it a cravat?"

"I don't bloody care."

"Right," said Q absently, swiping through images on his iPad. "Incidentally, you'll be a Monsieur Jean-Luc Valmé from the Ministry of Culture. Now, what's to be done for a wig?"

"I'll just borrow your hair, shall I?" Bond said rather snidely, and Q gave him a level stare before snorting under his breath.

"I don't think it would do, 007," he said coolly. "And if you intended that as an insult, I should warn you I'm impervious to that sort of nonsense. I don't have enough hair for that period anyway," he continued, putting one hand into the cap of thick, dark, wayward curls and waves.

"Not a powdered wig, I trust," Bond said without much hope.

"I really don't know, 007, I'm no expert. Although I shall be, in a day or so. Your papers will be ready by morning, but this, this…" He gestured at the tablet screen. "Won't be. Come back in thirty-six hours and we'll have something for you then."

"Thank you. I look forward to it," Bond said with such heavy irony that Q was forced to take notice. His staff, bent over their keyboards, were typing away frantically, but it was clear that they were listening. Bond took a deep breath, and then turned and walked to the exit.

"No time to make this thing bullet- and knife-proof, I'm afraid," Q muttered. Then he spoke into his intercom, a tiny speaker pinned to his shirt collar. "Tell Reynolds I'm emailing a color sample. Nothing gaudy, mind." His eyes swept over Bond's face in an impersonal manner. "Bluish-grey, I think, will do."

"Sir," said Vargas meekly from behind her monitor. "Tell them they'll need starch, or the lace will go all limp."

"Yes, tell them," Bond said, feeling himself nearly at the end of his patience on the subject. "Limp is not a word I'd use to describe myself, Quartermaster."

He was almost out the door when Q fired a parting shot. "Just be grateful we're not suiting you up as a medieval lord. You'd be wearing a tunic and hose, and although the ladies might like it, I think you'd find it a trifle draughty."***

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

How men managed to get anything done—anything practical or even anything salacious—wearing garments like these was beyond Bond's understanding.

He was in Paris, the City of Light, a venue he had always liked. It was beautiful, the food was excellent, the wine, in particular, superb. The women he spent time with there had always been elegant, stylish, and wonderfully dressed (when they were dressed at all). As he rode from the airport to his hotel, watching the strolling pedestrians through his taxi window, Bond amused himself by imagining his Quartermaster, in one of his cardigans or fuzzy striped jumpers, mingling with the well turned out Parisian throng.

But now, surveying himself in the wardrobe mirror of his hotel bedroom, Bond could only wonder how long it took gentlemen of the eighteenth century to get dressed in the morning. Presumably they had servants to help them. He had had no such assistance, and it had taken some time to get into the pale blue-grey coat, waistcoat, and breeches, with their gold floral trim and white lace ruffles at the wrists, more lace ruffles at the neck and at the opening of the waistcoat. The wig, thank the gods, was a simple one: white, with a short ponytail at the nape. Bond was more than grateful that a car had been hired to take him to the residence where the ball was taking place.

The residence was an imposing mansion boasting a sizeable ballroom with rows of chandeliers, curlicued moldings on walls and ceiling, and mirrored walls. Moneypenny and Q had been quite right: among the many different costumes worn by guests of the event, a large number were clearly inspired by the eighty years or so leading up to the fall of the French monarchy. Massive skirts, double-layered sleeves dripping with lace, and skyscraper wigs—some of them powdered—topped with everything from ostrich feathers to gemstones abounded. Men wore high-heeled shoes with jeweled buckles. The vast chamber reeked of expensive perfume, with faint undertones of hairspray.

Bond's mission had sounded simple, at the outset. A British female agent traveling with a tour group in Asia had uncovered information on North Korea's nuclear weapons program, as well as names of spies active in Europe and the UK. Her cover blown, she had been killed by persons unknown, but not before getting the data, contained in a miniaturized memory chip, to one of the members of her group, a British-born translator named Bartlet, employed by the French embassy. She had somehow arranged to implant the chip beneath the skin behind one of his shoulder blades, with instructions to turn it over to authorities when he reached Paris. The day of his arrival coincided with the costume ball, which he was meant to attend before heading to the embassy and, presumably, surgical removal of the chip. This lavish event, then, was the last chance for anybody who wanted him dead, as well as the final opportunity to retrieve the stolen information. And it was Bond's assignment to see to it that whoever showed up to terminate Mr Bartlet should himself be eliminated.

The problem was, neither French nor British intelligence had been able to identify a likely assassin. Without this information, Bond could do little beyond keeping his eyes peeled for trouble. He stayed close to young Mr Bartlet—easily recognizable from his photographs—but it was almost impossible to canvas the crowd for a potential killer. Time was running out, and the hit was supposed to take place _tonight_.

"Monsieur Valmé."

At the sound of that unmistakable voice, Bond turned in the crush of people to find Q making his way towards him through a forest of wide, panniered skirts and towering coiffures. Bond maintained an expression of non-recognition with an effort but it was difficult not to stare; his Quartermaster was clad in black velvet with a foaming lace jabot at his throat and more of the fine white lace at his wrists. He wore no wig, but a tricorne hat, also black velvet, was tucked under one arm, and he sported a simple black mask with no ornamentation. All of that severe darkness, with the grace notes of white lace, made him look fragile, almost ethereal. Bond watched as a number of guests, male and female, followed him with their eyes.

"Monsieur?" said Bond, with just the right amount of polite curiosity. Q extended a hand; Bond shook it, and Q whispered, in English, "A word."

In the faux candlelight of the chandeliers Q's eyes gleamed almost emerald, matching the pin nestled in the lace of his cravat. "Well, Q," Bond said drily, under his breath. "That _is_ a rather fetching ensemble." But he followed his Quartermaster to an embrasure at one side of the huge room, where, under the pretext of showing Bond an antique enameled snuff box ("Where the devil did he get that?" Bond wondered), Q leaned towards him and murmured, "We've identified the assassin. An electronic message was intercepted only a few hours ago. I decrypted it. He was hired by North Korea. I could have told you, via the comm link, but he had to be identified by sight. In the puce coat, over there."

Bond turned his head casually. The man in question, a burly redheaded individual in a coat of an unfortunate shade of puce, was carrying a carved walking stick that Bond imagined might easily conceal a weapon. Or perhaps it was hidden behind the cascades of lace upon his broad chest. His face was partially concealed by a mask, but he looked, Bond noted, vaguely familiar.

"Are you sure?" Bond whispered, and Q gestured with his chin. The puce coat was now advancing in the direction of Mr Bartlet, and Bond had to nearly elbow his way through the crowd in order to intercept him.

The puce-coated figure was less than ten feet from young Bartlet when Bond reached him and tapped him lightly on the shouder.

"Excuse me," he began, and saw the man's eyes widen, and then narrow with a look of recognition. Damn his imperfect memory! This would-be assassin had looked familiar, and although Bond still couldn't place him, they had clearly met before and the fellow knew who he was.

This realization was confirmed when the man's hand slid smoothly out of his embroidered jacket and Bond caught a flash of metal before he felt the prick of a stiletto against his side. It was unlikely that anybody else had noticed this, as the crowd was far too tightly packed.

"Mr Bond," said the man in a gravelly voice, unaccented. "What a pleasant surprise. Come with me, if you please…next door will do."

"Ah," murmured Bond, casting a quick glance at the rest of the room. "And your target?"

"Mr Bartlet can wait for the moment," was the reply, followed by a little push from the hand holding the knife. Bond let the man guide him out of the crowd and through a door into what looked like a library. The assassin shut the door firmly behind them, and twisting round, Bond faced the stiletto that was no longer pressing against his ribs but now pointed at his chest. As he turned his own hand came up, grasping the man's wrist, twisting it, and the knife fell with a clatter, but the assassin broke away, reaching into his ruffles for what would almost certainly be a firearm.

" _Monsieur Valmé est là_?" came a sharp voice from the suddenly opened door, and the assassin's head swiveled involuntarily to identify the source of the noise. As he did so, Bond's own gun cleared his holster, and a single bullet lodged neatly between the killer's eyes as the man turned back to face him.

"Neatly done," said Q, advancing into the room. "I'll have one of their security people come and tidy this up." He jerked his head in the direction of the ballroom. "There's a car waiting outside; shall we go? I haven't had any sleep in over forty-eight hours."

"You know he could have shot you," Bond said calmly, and Q shrugged his shoulders.

"Occupational hazard, 007," he replied, yawning suddenly. "He was much more likely to turn back and shoot _you_."

Neither of them spoke again until they were settled in the backseat of the car Q had arranged for. Then Bond cleared his throat. "That was a close call. How did you get here so quickly…did you actually fly?"

Like everybody else at HQ, he knew of Q's intense aversion to air travel.

"I did," Q replied, sounding fatigued and self-satisfied at the same time. "It wasn't a matter of choice. There was no one else available, and time was of the essence."

"Then I am doubly in your debt," Bond said coolly, and they both lapsed into silence once again, broken once or twice by Q's yawning.

Though they were booked for separate flights the following morning, Q had been given a room in Bond's hotel. He collected his key card at the front desk and they rode up in the lift together, Q visibly beginning to droop, lids half-closed over those remarkable greenish eyes.

"Oh look, you're right next door," Bond said conversationally, only to be met by a look of rather drowsy alarm and a muffled, "Good night, 007," as Q disappeared into his room, the door closing firmly behind him.

Bond spent the next ten minutes getting out of his costume, remarking again on the impracticality of so many ruffles, and feeling momentary pity for the laundresses who had had to deal with garments of this sort. As he entered the bathroom, toothbrush in hand, he could hardly help noticing that the walls of the hotel were thinner than they should have been; he could hear, faintly, the thrum of the shower in Q's bathroom, adjacent to his own. For a split second Bond fantasized about joining him there, slipping into the shower stall to find his Quartermaster, divested of velvet and lace, naked, wet, and—

Perhaps that head injury had affected his mental balance as well as his memory, Bond thought savagely as he dropped his clothing, stepped into his own shower, and turned the water from hot to cold.

* Biographical information on James Bond is available primarily from the obituary written by M towards the end of the Ian Fleming novel, Y _ou Only Live Twice_.

** This same biography/obituary mentions Bond's attendance at (and expulsion from) Eton, and his years in the Royal Navy, but makes no mention of university. However, the film version of _You Only Live Twice_ has Bond reminding Moneypenny about his studies at Cambridge.

*** Drafty, in American.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5: Gossip, and Something Non-consensual**

"Not that it's any of my business, James," Moneypenny said almost apologetically. "But I've been wondering."

It was a week since Bond's return from Paris, and he hadn't been assigned to any new missions. Eyeing himself in the mirror that morning, he had noticed the darkness under his eyes, what might have been new lines etching themselves into the corners. Perhaps Mallory thought he needed a rest, needed a break, was getting a bit old for this sort of thing?

"Yes, you've been wondering?" he said now, brows drawn together in an expression that was not quite a frown. "I've been wondering too, as it happens. Is M sidelining me, or are the world's villains simply on holiday?"

"Ha ha," replied Moneypenny, giving him a glance of affectionate exasperation. "And no, he's not sidelining you. As it happens, it's been a quiet week in the villainy department. For which we should all be grateful, don't you think? But that isn't what I was wondering about."

"I see," said Bond, who really did not quite see what she was getting at. "Well?"

They were alone in M's anteroom, and M was sequestered with a visitor from the PM, but even so, Moneypenny glanced at the baize door and lowered her voice.

"Don't be angry with me," she murmured, hands clasped in front of her as if in supplication. "I wanted to speak to you before Mallory noticed…anything. It's about you and Q. No, please don't look like that," she added hastily as Bond's eyes narrowed. "I said, it isn't my business. But you know what M might think if he found out. He's not at all a bad sort, but he's a bit of a stickler for regulations."

"Not always," Bond retorted, remembering the events of Skyfall, and Mallory's collusion with Tanner and Q. "And for your information, there isn't anything even vaguely improper about my dealings with the Quartermaster."

Moneypenny looked at him skeptically and said only, "Oh."

"I can't think how you came to that conclusion," Bond said in deceptively mild tones as he adjusted his cufflinks.

"Oh come off it, James," Moneypenny snapped, but then she smiled at him, a little sadly. "It's not just me who's noticed. Tanner has too. But he'd never say a word about it; he's loyal to his friends as well as to MI6. Ever since you were discharged from hospital, your attention has been riveted by our colleague in Q Branch. I'm saying this for his sake as well as yours; M thinks highly of him, but he wouldn't be pleased to know that a head of section was dabbling in fun and games with a Double O agent."

"And I'm very fond of Q," she added firmly. "I wouldn't want M angry with him. And I wouldn't want to see him hurt."

Bond exhaled mightily before seating himself in the leather armchair next to Moneypenny's desk. "Moneypenny. Eve. You have my word. There is nothing going on between us. We're hardly _dabbling in fun and games_."

"But you would like to be," Moneypenny said wryly. "Oh, I don't blame you; Q's rather lovely in his own way, and he's brilliant, and almost as much of a risk taker as you are. I've begun to think," she continued, "that you might be well matched. But you know Mallory wouldn't agree with me."

"Bugger Mallory," muttered Bond inelegantly, and Moneypenny actually laughed. "Look, Eve, I don't know who's been gossiping, but there's no basis for any of this suspicion. I assure you I haven't laid a hand on our Quartermaster, nor am I likely to do so. And, appearances to the contrary, he's very much an adult and can take care of himself."

"Oh, I wouldn't say anybody's _gossiping_ ," Moneypenny said, lowering her voice once more. "At least, not anybody up here. But those youngsters in the Q Branch IT lab appear to be concerned. They're devoted to their boss, you know, and they do, well, you know, talk amongst themselves."

Bond shrugged. "Do you really think M would put any stock in what those silly youngsters are nattering on about?"

Moneypenny lifted her elegant eyebrows. "They may be youngsters, as you call them—at least some of them are—but they're not silly. If they're concerned it's because they think they have reason to be. Not that I suppose you'd misbehave in the midst of Q Branch—"

"No, mummy, I swear I've been good," Bond murmured with such phony submissiveness that Moneypenny stifled a grin.

"Oh, you're too much, James," she said sternly, although it was clear she was amused. "Now get out of here, do, and make yourself useful. Tanner has a few questions about your official report on Paris. I'll contact you as soon as M comes up with a new assignment."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"I was never so glad to get rid of anything so much as that eighteenth-century costume," Q said absently as he examined Bond's Walther, before making some delicate adjustments to the grip with what looked like a miniscule screwdriver. "I'd never have thought velvet and lace could be so _scratchy_."

Bond's mind flashed back to the crowded ballroom in Paris, the astonishing vision of his Quartermaster in black velvet—so slender, angular yet lissome—and how the pale olive of Q's skin had gleamed like fine old ivory under the chandelier lights. The mischievous side of his brain wanted to tell Q how strangely inviting he had looked in that combination of period foppishness and velvety darkness, but what came out of his mouth was far less problematic. "They retrieved the chip from the young fellow's shoulder, then?"

"Yes," replied Q, rubbing at his neck as though he still felt the discomfort of that Louis XV collar. "And very informative it was."

"Well worth the effort, I hope," Bond said with a touch of humor. "Fancy the MI6 Quartermaster having to fly to Paris, looking like an extra from _Les Liaisons Dangereuses_."

Q extended the newly-adjusted Walther, grip end towards Bond, and Bond took it, feeling the perfect balance and steady weight of the weapon in his right hand.

"That assassin, the one who recognized you," Q said quietly, turning away from the sharply pricked ears of his staff. "We've gotten word from the French. He was called Gregerson. Does the name ring any bells?"

Bond sighed and ran one hand brusquely through his close-cropped fair hair. "Now that you mention it, it sounds familiar. But I didn't recognize him on my own…damn! I suppose," he went on, meeting Q's unreadable look, "M thinks I risked compromising the mission with my bloody memory lapse."

"M doesn't know about it, 007," Q replied, his voice even lower than before. "I don't believe you endangered the mission, or that young fellow Bartlet for that matter, so I'm making a judgement call not to say anything. Omission, after all, is not the same as telling a lie."

Bond grunted; in spite of their odd, prickly rapport he had not expected Q to be so considerate, or quite so willing to omit material from his report, and he felt a faint flush of gratitude.

"I seem to be consistently in your debt," he said finally, but with a lopsided grin. "For that I most certainly owe you a _spectacular_ dinner."

No sooner had the words left his lips than he realized that Moneypenny was right; nearly every head in the computer lab turned, with varying degrees of subtlety, in his direction.

Q noticed it as well, and his eyes met Bond's as his own lips curled slightly at the corners, but he simply said, "Thank you, but that isn't necessary. You owe me nothing."

"I beg to disagree."

Q rolled his eyes, but his tone of voice was even and perfectly calm. "No worries, 007. Please don't feel obliged to keep issuing dinner invitations. I'm sure some day I'll need to ask you for a favor."

"So I hope."

Q sighed gustily. "Must you make everything you say sound like innuendo?"

Bond raised an ironic eyebrow. "Your very first words to me were innuendo to the tenth degree. Implying, may I remind you, that Double O agents past a certain age were _grand old warships_ , useful only for scrap and due to be towed away for good measure."

Q grimaced, and at the same time had the grace to look mildly embarrassed. "I had the feeling you might remind me of that, someday. My comeuppance, I suppose."

"Perhaps. Now, you're really refusing to sit down to a meal with me?"

Q sighed for a second time. "Are you trying to _flirt_ with me, 007, or do you not understand the meaning of 'No thank you'? And don't take it personally. It's not that I object to the idea; I don't. It's the reality that could prove complicated."

"I'm pleased you don't object to the idea. And the reality doesn't have to be complicated."

"Most things involving you _are_ complicated, 007. Now if you'll excuse me. I have a meeting in a quarter of an hour, and then I need to work on your Omega Seamaster." They had taken several steps away from the rows of computer workstations, where Q's staff was obviously straining to overhear their conversation. "Why must you handle these devices so roughly? There are dents in the case back, and the helium release valve has come loose."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"When you speak with 007 tomorrow, tell him his Omega is now in good working condition," Q said to Moneypenny, via the closed-circuit interoffice version of Skype. "And that if he doesn't take better care of his tech, we'll downgrade him to a Timex."

" _If_ I speak with 007 tomorrow," Moneypenny replied ruefully. "Except when he's summoned by M, or is on assignment, God knows where he is or when he's likely to turn up."

"Well, how can you summon him for M unless you know how to find him? Oh never mind, it doesn't matter. He'll put in an appearance sooner or later, if he wants his watch back." Q stood up and stretched, noting the stiffness in his aching shoulder muscles.

A chorus of _oh no!_ and _fucking fuck!_ erupted in the room behind him, and he turned to see a group of his programmers clustered round Michaels' monitor, grumbling and clicking their tongues.

"I hope this isn't something I need to deal with," he called out sternly, and Michaels shook his head vehemently, shouting something that sounded like, "I can handle it, sir," over the yammering of his colleagues.

Q turned back to his own screen. "I'm off in half an hour, Eve," he said, pressing his fingers against his temples. "If I can sneak out of here, that is. I don't think M has anything for me at the moment."

"No he doesn't…go home and get some sleep—or something much nicer, involving beds," Moneypenny said from his monitor. "The second option might do you some good." She completely ignored Q's indignant huff, and her image winked out a moment later.

As it happened, Q didn't leave a half hour later, getting caught up in the mass of conflicting data that had unexpectedly inundated Michaels' computer. Once this matter had been resolved, he rang Security—according to one of M's recent edicts, all section heads were to be driven home by an armed guard in the event that they stayed late at work—and waited patiently on the pavement outside the main building until the usual unmarked car stopped at the curb.

"Stop at the chemist's, please, Neville, before my flat. There's something I need to get, and I won't have time tomorrow," said Q as he slid into the back seat, pulling the door to as the car shot forward.

"I do hope you're not ill, sir," replied Neville, except that it wasn't Neville at all, and Q stared with sudden enlightenment at the back of his driver's head, and the lights from passing cars glinting off his short blond hair.

"Um," Q said, gulping with astonishment. "Bond."

"Should we stop at the chemist's before or after dinner?" said the familiar voice. "I'm certain there's one near the restaurant."

"You—" Q swallowed the colorful nouns and adjectives he had been about to blurt out, and bit his lip instead. "Where's Neville?"

"Oh, Neville was happy to have the night off," Bond said casually. "He's a good fellow; I've known him for years, and I promised you wouldn't report him."

"You've…you…what?" stammered Q, on the verge of losing his temper entirely. "What bloody business had you to do that?"

"None in the world," came the response. "But your refusals to sit down at the same table with me were becoming rather tiresome, and I couldn't think of any other way to do this than to kidnap you."

"As you did with M…our previous M," said Q, suddenly amused in spite of his very real annoyance. "No wonder she used to insist that you were the most difficult of the Double Os to keep in check."

Bond made no reply to this, and they were silent for the remainder of the drive, which was not very long. After parking the car, Bond exited and went round to Q's door, which he held open with the punctilious courtesy of a professional chauffeur, causing Q, whose anger had already dissipated, to shake briefly with laughter.

"I suppose people have told you that you are entirely too much, 007."

"The very words Eve used this morning," Bond acknowledged, gesturing to Q to precede him into the restaurant. Q complied—what, after all, could he do at this point—and allowed himself to be ushered through an interior of understated elegance to an immaculately set table at the back of the room. Bond took his own seat and leather bound menus were produced. Q glanced quickly at his and then set it down as a waiter—no, the sommelier—materialized at Bond's side.

"I don't understand this at all, 007," he began, once the wine had been chosen and the sommelier had departed. Bond held up one hand to interrupt him.

"There isn't much to understand, Quartermaster," he said calmly as he shook out the snowy folds of the heavy linen serviette. "As you seem quite resistant to any other forms of…gratitude, I thought dinner might be my only option. And it's an excellent restaurant; I recommend the cold salmon, although the pheasant is very good."

"I'm supposed to believe that?" Q replied, after a pause to collect his thoughts. "You are not in debt to me in any way. If I have contributed to your success while on assignment, it's only because I was doing my job. You flirt with me periodically, yet we all know your distinct sexual preference is for women. Precisely what are you up to, 007? I confess I'm at a total loss to comprehend your behavior."

With the approach of a waiter, both fell silent, but minutes later, orders having been dealt with, and a very fine chilled white wine having been poured for them, Q took a deep breath and met Bond's enigmatic glance across the candle and glass bowl of flowers in the center of the table.

"I think, Bond, that an explanation is in order."

Bond's shoulders lifted slightly beneath his perfectly cut jacket, and he raised his glass of wine in an ironic salute. "There's a lot I haven't been able to explain—to myself, even—since my recovery, Q," he said simply. "I'm not asking for pity or sympathy from anybody, far from it. I'm back, I believe, to a good level of self sufficiency. But there are certain things I can't explain, and I thought you might be able to clarify one for me."

"I thought I'd done that already, 007," Q said, raising both hands to indicate his helplessness. "Medical should be able to answer your questions better than I can."

Bond made an impatient sound and lowered his wine glass. "I'm not talking about my medical condition. I need an explanation for my preoccupation with _you_. Yes, I know it's odd," he added, as Q made a brusque gesture of incomprehension. "And I don't wish to embarrass you, but you see, you're really the only person I can discuss this with."

"Preoccupation," said Q in a rather hoarse voice. "Really, Bond!"

"That sounds so much nicer," Bond continued, one eyebrow raised, "than _obsession_. And I suppose some of my preoccupations are common knowledge at HQ."

"I see no reason to discuss your obsessions, 007," Q said, a hint of Arctic chill emphasizing his precise and delicate diction. "But since you insist, I believe it is common knowledge, as well as noted in your dossier, that you have a confirmed addiction to strong drink and fast cars, not to mention glamorous women, four star restaurants, and Savile Row suits, and that you're what's known in common parlance as an adrenaline junkie. That you're a bona fide sex addict is not noted but is also generally known, I think."

"Oh is it?" Bond replied amiably. "In any case, nobody need worry, it isn't a contagious condition."

Q's lips twitched and for a moment it seemed as though he might laugh.

"Well," he said after a moment, "at least you admit to your shortcomings."

Bond's crooked smile spoke volumes. " _Shortcomings_ is not exactly the word I would have chosen," he murmured, looking Q straight in the eyes. "But you're quite right, I see little point in trying to hide my—shall I say my faults?—from my superiors at HQ."

"More innuendo, I see. I should have expected no less from you. Although why it should be directed at me is still difficult to understand."

"Is it? Do you think so ill of yourself, Quartermaster?"

Bond issued another of his typically lopsided half-smiles, and suddenly, to his horror, Q's mind jumped to an image of 007 without that wretched bespoke suit, in fact, without any clothing at all, next to him, around him, over him, under him, in a nest of tangled sheets.

"I'll admit to the fondness for drink and fast cars, although MI6 is partially to blame for the latter," Bond murmured. "You lot in Q Branch are clever that way, you've equipped me handsomely and I'm grateful. As for the so-called glamorous paramours: yes, women for the most part, but there have been a few exceptions."

"You can't possibly be thinking of making me one of those exceptions," Q snapped. He could feel his face beginning to burn and was thankful for the dimness of the room. "That makes no sense whatsoever." Then he fell silent as a waiter refilled their wine glasses, wondering how this very peculiar dinner conversation could possibly become more…peculiar.

"These things rarely do make sense, Q," Bond said flatly as he addressed himself to what remained of his salmon. "But I should make one thing perfectly clear. Should my attentions, if you want to call them that, repulse you, if you have no feelings of attraction to me whatsoever, I will, to use legal and military terms, _stand down_ , _cease and desist_. I want no ill will from you, as you can imagine."

"Oh," replied Q with a kind of gulp, unexpectedly finding himself at a loss for words. "I…"

"I thought it best to put my cards on the table, you see."

"Quite," said Q faintly. "I do see."

"It would have been difficult to have this conversation at HQ," Bond continued wryly, waving away the hovering waiter and replenishing their glasses himself. "So I'm afraid I simply had to kidnap you."

"Er," said Q, scrambling for some sort of appropriate vocabulary.

Bond gently slid Q's wineglass in his direction. "You needn't fear that I have nefarious designs on your person. After we've dined I'll deposit you on your doorstep, safe and sound and untouched."

"Kind of you, thanks," Q replied between his teeth, having finally found his voice. He then lowered his eyes from the steely blue gaze facing him across the table, and turned his attention to the raspberry tart that had been set, with his coffee, in front of him.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6: To Do or Not to Do…Is _That_ the Question?**

The computer lab in Q Branch was hardly an environment conducive to serious introspection. Still housed in The Bunker, it was cavernous, brightly lit, and usually filled with the sounds of clacking keyboards, pings and dings from monitor speakers, and the occasional swearing of a frustrated programmer, data architect, or code breaker. There was, in fact, a room just down the hall, outfitted with padded walls and punching bags, to which stonewalled and disheartened employees could adjourn in order to take out their frustrations on something other than the innocent co-worker sitting next to them.

Q was conscientiously reviewing specs for a new piece of tech on his laptop screen, but his mind was doing double duty, flashing back periodically to the words 007 had uttered in that restaurant the previous evening.

He had been the object of people's attentions at MI6 before, but never like this. And the other individuals—male and female—who had made attempts on his virtue (Q snorted, mentally, at that timeworn phrase) had come up against a brick wall. He had always been polite, diplomatic, but had made a point of ensuring that none of them would have any reason to hope.

At dinner with 007, he had, either consciously or unconsciously, dispensed with the brick wall. He had offered no encouragement, but had not demanded that Bond _cease and desist_ either.

Was that wise? In spite of being what Vargas often referred to as "sex on legs," Bond was a _colleague_ , for pity's sake.

Relationships, even casual ones, were problematic under normal circumstances, but his circumstances could scarcely be described as normal. And inter-agency relationships, while not strictly forbidden, were generally frowned upon, for reasons that any intelligent person could understand. Furthermore, the mere act of contemplating some sort of intimate connection, however brief, with an unpredictable wild card and inveterate philanderer like James Bond was simply asking for trouble.

But the truth of the matter was that Q, for all his intellectual and technical prowess, his lone wolf intensity within the crowded confines of Q Branch, was human. And he was young. And he genuinely missed the physical release of sex. There had been enough of it, during his university years, to keep him satisfied, even if he spent more time in the library, the engineering labs, and computer science circles than he did in the pubs and in other people's beds. There had been a few friends-with-benefits, and a number of pleasant, one-off encounters, but nothing of great emotional importance. Now, of course, he had no time for either. Between the demands of Q Branch and the need for sleep—sometimes as little as four hours a night and rarely more than six—he had limited opportunities to indulge in pub hookups, singles gatherings, or online dating sites, things that had never really interested him anyway.

He supposed that many of the staff at MI6 indulged in erotic fantasies about Bond. (There was even an expression in current usage amongst younger employees: anything of superior quality was referred to as a "total Bondfuck.") But at present, and as strange as it seemed, he, Q, appeared to be the only person in the agency who was on the actual receiving end of attention from the legendary field operative.

Naturally, he had no illusions about what a "relationship" with Bond would be like. It wouldn't be a relationship at all, really; it would be one, or perhaps a few, meetings for the sole purpose of getting off, and that would almost certainly be the extent of things, as far as 007 was concerned.

Another thing Q knew for certain was that if he should ever (in a moment of temporary insanity) yield to Bond's, er, enticements, there would be no reason to think about 007 becoming emotionally compromised. That was simply not Bond's MO; the man sought out sex for what it was to him: a physical release and a means of appreciating the touch and visual appeal of another human being. From what Q had heard, this appreciation never involved the tug of emotional commitment. Nobody had ever heard of Bond displaying tender feelings towards any of his conquests or paramours, with the exception of a certain Vesper Lynd—and although everyone knew _that_ story, they never dared to say anything about it in 007's presence. And, according to the MI6 gossip grapevine, Bond treated his recreational sex partners with courtesy, was never purposefully unkind, but made it clear from the outset that he had no interest in anything beyond an entertaining interlude of the most basic sort.

"It can't be that bad." Tanner's voice broke into Q's thoughts so unexpectedly that he came close to scrambling the specs he had been glowering at on his screen.

"Oh!...no, it isn't…bad at all," Q said hastily, turning from his laptop. "In fact, it's rather boring. Diagrams and blueprints. Do you have something for me?"

"M asked me to review the latest budget for tech used by the Double Os. Including automobiles."

"I can submit what I have to you now," Q replied, searching for spread sheets on his computer. "And send the rest electronically to Eve later this morning."

"Right," said Tanner, watching as Q shuffled printouts into a folder. "God, it's a relief to get out of that office, sometimes. As I've said before, Mallory's a good sort: intelligent, dogged, fair-minded, formidable when necessary. Has a bit of a temper, though."

"Ah," said Q, who had more or less come to this same conclusion over the past year. "Well, what's the news from the front, today?"

Tanner sighed. "More communiqués from the PM," he said, his voice low. "And M has his knickers in a twist about 003's disregard of protocol in Brazil. Says he's getting to be nearly as bad as 007. And speaking of 007, he's gone off the radar again. AWOL since yesterday afternoon. He was meant to see M this morning, but nobody bloody knows where he is. Haven't seen him at all, have you?"

"Um," said Q, not a little startled. "No, I haven't." It was the first lie he had ever told Tanner, and he felt a twinge of guilt. "He's in trouble, I suppose?"

"He wasn't, but he is now," Tanner replied, frowning. "M has an assignment for him, and he disappears. Is he _trying_ to get himself demoted?"

"I shouldn't think so," Q said lamely, but Tanner took no notice, almost jumping instead as his earpiece beeped, startling them both.

Tanner put his hand to his ear, listened for perhaps a minute, and then turned to Q and rolled his eyes.

"Guess who just strolled into M's office?" he said in tones of mingled surprise and relief. "I'd better get back there, so I'll be in time to help pick up the pieces."

"M's taken to throwing crockery, then?" Q said ironically, thinking of the pair of Dresden china figurines on the shelf behind Mallory's desk

Tanner gave a snort of laughter as he headed for the exit.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Don't you want to know?" Moneypenny asked Q shortly before midday. They had been reviewing the budget for tech-augmented vehicles—cars mostly—to be used by field agents, and Bond's latest Aston Martin, another DB10, was naturally the costliest of the lot. Bond himself had exited M's office as they were in the midst of this, but although Moneypenny saluted him with a cheery wave, Q, stubbornly, mumbled "007," but kept his eyes fixed on the list of figures.

"Don't I want to know what?" Q said, raising his head and then removing his glasses and rubbing his eyelids with both fists.

"Where M's sending him next, of course," replied Moneypenny, favoring Q with a very gentle smile. "Even though he was so displeased, earlier, that I was worried he might give the mission to somebody else."

Q swallowed a grin. "I expect he secretly _enjoys_ being angry with Bond. It's a little like two schoolboys acting out, in a game of one-upmanship."

"Oh, I don't know. When M asked him where in blazes he was this morning, he answered that he was at target practice and didn't know about the summons until after. And when M said, well then, where the bloody hell were you the night before, he said he had been negotiating something important with someone important, and didn't realize that he was meant to be on call twenty-four-seven."

"Oh," said Q, feeling the blood rush to his cheeks. _Someone important_. "Really? Don't tell me he doesn't remember that of course he's on call twenty-four-seven…just like the rest of us."

"Naturally M didn't ask him what he was _negotiating_ , or with whom, because he assumed, as anybody would in Bond's case, that…" Moneypenny's voice suddenly faded away and she narrowed her eyes at him thoughtfully. "You know, if he was with someone from, well, _here_ , I'm certain he would never let Mallory find out."

Q shrugged his shoulders and then gave her a stare of wide-eyed innocence that would have made any actor proud. "From what I've heard, 007 keeps his private life very much under wraps. So, what was it you were going to tell me?"

"Where his next assignment is taking him," Moneypenny said promptly, giving Q a sharp but friendly glance. "To Palermo. He'll be needing some things from Q Branch, of course."

"I've always wanted to visit Sicily," Q said mildly in an attempt to move the conversation away from Bond's off-mission activities. "It's very beautiful, I understand. Splendid architecture. Dramatic scenery. All those Greek and Roman ruins."

"It _is_ beautiful," Moneypenny replied, falling into line, to Q's profound relief. "I've been, twice. And the cuisine can be sublime."

"Lots of excellent citrus and seafood, I imagine," Q said, bringing up a series of blueprints on his tablet. "Now, what's this about 008 wanting a collapsible, portable _helicopter_? He says one of my predecessors made one and it was very successful."*

Moneypenny made a wry face. "Yes, while it lasted. Which wasn't beyond one flight. The taxpaying public would be appalled if they knew how much that thing cost. I doubt M would approve another expenditure of that type, unless he knew the result was going to be functional for more than twenty-four hours."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

On his way down to The Bunker from the Vauxhall Cross building, Bond mulled over the mission he had just been given, and made mental notes of what he was likely to need for Palermo. He had been to Sicily several times, including a visit during his days in the Navy, and could remember the nailing heat of the interior in summer, the beauty of the coastal and mountain landscapes, the scent of lemon blossoms that seemed forever present in the gardens and even the cities. It would be nice, someday, to go there on holiday, no assignments involved. His imagination toyed with the thought of his Quartermaster amidst the ancient Greek temple ruins near Agrigento and Segesta, before he heartily scoffed at himself for picturing the Head of Q Branch with vine leaves in the waves and curls of his dark hair, like a regular little Dionysos.**

As he made his way to the subterranean space, he also reflected on the very real fact that he knew nothing whatsoever about young Q apart from his professional activities and qualifications. He wasn't alone in this; nobody else appeared to know anything about Q either. So he was completely in the dark when it came to the Quartermaster's personal life, certainly when it came to his sex life. If he had one, which Bond thought he might, at least in the past if not in the present. It seemed to him unlikely that Q's fellow sufferers at university, hot with youth and raging hormones, would have let that delicate, sylphlike presence—with that remarkable hair, those cheekbones!—go untampered with. And surely there had been something during the years since Q's student days.

Vargas and two other female code breakers passed him in the underground stairwell. The two young women whose names he didn't know made eyes at him almost automatically, but Vargas gestured towards the bottom of the steps.

"He's in the computer lab, sir," she said, without even being asked, and Bond's lips curled in an ironic half-smile before he thanked her and continued on.

Moments later, peering through the heavy glass door to the computer lab, Bond could see most of the large chamber, filled with workstations and hung with screens of various sizes. Q was perched on a stool near the far end of the room, examining something on the screen of a small tablet. Like Bond, several of his young staff watched as he scowled at the tablet, fiddled with his tie, and then absent-mindedly pushed his gravity-defiant hair into various shapes with his fingers.

Bond approached Q's corner so silently that the young man was not aware of him until he said, "Ahem."

Q's dark eyelashes lifted and Bond noted, almost dispassionately, that his eyes were remarkably beautiful in spite of the shadows of fatigue beneath them. "Yes? You were saying, 007?"

"Sorry to interrupt your…this…" Bond gestured at the tablet screen, on which a number of diagrams were competing for space. "I've been told you have some material for my Palermo assignment."

"Oh. Right. Follow me, if you please." Q sped in the direction of his glassed-in office and Bond trailed behind, more slowly. Several objects were laid out on the desk, separated from piles of printouts and other papers, and Bond lifted one curiously. It looked something like a hearing aide, but perhaps even smaller and more unobtrusive, although a fraction larger than the usual comm link earpiece.

"Careful," Q said sharply, and Bond set it down again. "That's your audio interpreter; tap your ear once and it translates almost everything you can hear. A bit difficult in crowds, although we're working on that. There's a bit of a delay as well, but that's to be expected. It has a wireless link to this—" he gestured at a black metal box-like object, smaller in size than a paperbound novel. "The translation program's in here, and you can keep it in a pocket. Not perfect, but it'll be of assistance, since you don't speak Sicilian."

"Clever," said Bond, one eyebrow raised. "A pity it can't help me answer back in the same language."

Q gave a hard little smile. "Yes. A pity. But at least you'll know what people are saying in your immediate vicinity. Look, here's a case for the earpiece, so it won't get crushed."

Bond took it. "Anything else?"

"The usual." Q handed over Bond's Walther, newly cleaned and inspected, his radio, more miniscule than ever, and a pair of night-vision glasses disguised as fashionable Ray Bans.

"Thank you," said Bond casually, sliding the Walther inside his jacket. He moved what looked like a heap of blueprints away from the edge of the desk and sat down there. "Who's monitoring me?"

"I am."

"Good," Bond replied simply, examining the faux-Ray Bans and then putting the radio into his pocket. He saw Q's glance flicker in his direction, and knew his own expression was relaxed and impossible to read. He deliberately made no reference to the previous night's kidnapping, or anything they had discussed at dinner. "The fellow we're after is dealing in state secrets and access to materials like weapons-grade plutonium, but he had humble beginnings as a low-level hit man for organized crime. He's kept up some of his contacts there, although I don't know that they can be of any use to him."

"Interesting," said Q, tidying the piles of paper Bond had just dislodged. "But probably not too complicated. Less than a week should take care of things, don't you think?"

"Far less than a week, I should hope," Bond murmured, standing up. "Perhaps by the time I've returned you'll have that dinner jacket?" He put the Ray Bans into his outside pocket and raised his eyes to Q's.

"Perhaps. We had to put it aside for another project, but it shouldn't take long now." Q reached into his own jacket and withdrew the usual heavy envelope, which he extended to Bond. "Your tickets, passport under the name James Harris, and funds."

Bond took it. "I'll be on my way, then."

"Good luck out there in the field," Q said briskly, employing the words he almost always used when Bond left the country on a mission.

"Thank you," said Bond for the second time. He favored Q with a small, impersonal smile and exited, fully aware that his Quartermaster was eyeing him with well-concealed perplexity.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Q watched Bond's departure with a mixture of emotions, caught between a vague anger and an even vaguer suspicion that 007 had somehow turned the tables on him and was now playing _hard to get_.

Well he could bloody well play hard to get until the cows came home and turned into bulls, because _Q_ was not going to play along.

"Is something the matter, sir?" Vargas said rather anxiously. She and Michaels were standing in front of Q's desk, and he realized, belatedly, that his brows were still drawn together in a decided scowl.

"Not a thing," Q replied shortly. "Once this decoding's done with, let's get that cigarette tranquilizer gun to 009, shall we? Then we can finish up 007's dinner jacket and get him out of our hair."

"Get him out of _your_ hair, you mean, sir," Vargas murmured, exchanging glances with Michaels, and Q exhaled with exasperation.

"That's quite enough commentary about my hair, thanks," he said, folding his arms over his chest and thinking that he was far too indulgent with the younger members of his staff.

"Oh no, sir, what we meant was—" began Vargas, and Michaels jammed his elbow into her ribs. "We thought you might want a break from…"

"Shut up, Sally," muttered Michaels, and it suddenly occurred to Q what they were getting at.

"Michaels," he said, eyeing both of his subordinates with a stern eye. "Whatever it is you and Miss Vargas are thinking, about myself and 007, let me assure you that it is a mere figment of your overheated imaginations."

"Of course sir," said Michaels, hastily and totally unconvinced. Vargas, looking supremely skeptical, was chewing on her lower lip. The door to the computer lab had been left open, and he could hear most of his minions giggling surreptitiously.

"That's enough levity for today, children," he called through the door, and they went silent instantly. Vargas and Michaels crept back to their work stations, looking only slightly embarrassed, and Q turned resolutely to the diagrams he had been examining before Bond's arrival.

How ironic, he thought to himself, that a growing number of his fellow MI6 employees—Eve Moneypenny, his computer lab staff—were of the opinion that he and James Bond were going at it.

So why not just _do it_ , then?

Because, Q mused darkly, he had no desire to become another notch on 007's bedpost. And it would be too bloody humiliating to be shagged and then summarily dropped by a self-satisfied prick of a Double O agent, a person with whom he would have to work on a regular basis until one or the other of them left the service.

Or until Bond met with the fate of so many of his fellow field operatives…but that didn't bear thinking about.

* * *

* In the film version of "You Only Live Twice," Desmond Llewelyn's Q created a take-apart, portable autogyro aircraft called Little Nellie.

** Mr Whishaw recently took on the role of Dionysos in Euripides' "Bakkhai" (more commonly spelled "Bacchae") at the Almeida in London.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7: Hard to Get**

Q had had his fair share of erotic adventures during his student days—he had entered university a month after his fifteenth birthday—and he was hardly inexperienced in matters of that sort. Having begun with female partners before gravitating towards male ones, he considered himself bisexual but with a clear cut preference for men. However, since becoming the MI6 Quartermaster, he had had practically no time for dalliances, and was fully aware that when it came to the logistics of playing the field, he was a neophyte compared to Bond.

And, in all fairness to 007, was he really that much better than Bond when it came to how he felt about the people with whom he had gone to bed? Bond might fuck where he pleased and then forget about it in the morning, but was he, Q, so very different? He had never considered entering into an arrangement involving long-term plans, tender feelings, or emotional commitment, with anybody…in fact, he had purposefully sought out partners who had no interest in such things. He had justified this by reminding himself that his work schedule was far too complicated to include periods of quality time spent with a significant other, and had been rather pleased with himself for being able to—at least, prior to becoming the MI6 Quartermaster—enjoy the occasional tryst without any strings attached.

Now, it seemed, his own cool, detached attitude about physical relationships had come back to bite him on the arse. Because whatever his feelings about James Bond, they were anything but _cool_.

One or two of his old mates from uni would probably say that this was karmic payback.

And as for Bond suddenly playing hard to get (if that was, in fact, what he was doing)—Q was _not_ going to pursue him. Why give 007 the satisfaction?

"Michaels," he announced in the computer lab, two hours after Bond's flight landed in Sicily. "I'd like you to be on the comms with 007 until he's made contact with our man and located his target."

"Yes sir," Michaels replied, obedient, if mildly surprised. "And then…?"

"Let's see how long that takes, shall we?" Q said, almost irritably, before retiring to his glassed-in office, where he calmed himself down by taking an earlier model of Bond's translating earpiece apart and then putting it back together.

Two hours later Michaels appeared in his office, looking somewhat hangdog.

"He wants you on the comms, sir," he said after clearing his throat. "Thanked me for my assistance, and said that he's grown accustomed to being, er, handled by you."

 _Handled by you_. The bloody nerve of the man. It took all of Q's self control to ensure that his calm, detached expression did not change. "Thank you, Michaels. He's being difficult, as usual. Help Finney out with 002, would you?"

"Yes sir," Michaels said with relief, and fled.

Alone in his office, Q donned his earpiece after silently cursing MI6, Q Branch, and 007 under his breath for what seemed like a long time. He must have looked singularly grim, because Vargas and one of her colleagues appeared at his door, bearing his Scrabble mug filled with Earl Grey, and a plate with several biscuits (purloined from the staff lounge) that looked as though they had seen better days.

"Are you all right, sir?" Vargas essayed, proffering the tea.

"Migraine," Q replied, rubbing at his temples, and in truth he was feeling the beginnings of a headache. "Thank you, Miss Vargas."

Given their mistaken belief that he and 007 were now some sort of item, it seemed that the lab staff had taken his pained expression for concern about the safety of his _love interest_ , for fuck's sake.

At that very moment, Bond's voice sounded in his earpiece. "Q. Are you there?"

"No, he's not," Q replied coldly, gesturing his minions from the room. "He's gone on holiday. What can I do for you?"

"Q, what happened to the surveillance on Angelotti? I haven't heard a word from…who was watching him, Simpson?"

Q swore and waved Vargas back into his office. "Find Simpson, will you? Speak with him. He hasn't contacted 007, and Bond's waiting to move in."

Vargas returned to her workstation, only to reappear moments later; her face had gone suddenly white and pinched-looking. "Sir. We can't reach Simpson. It seems he may have been…detained."

"Bloody hell!" muttered Q, and raced to his workstation, where he tried for half an hour, in vain, to raise a response from Simpson. The young field agent, on his first assignment, had been tailing their quarry for several days. The computer lab had gone deadly silent; Q's underlings stared at their monitors, but all ears were attuned to the terse voice of their supervisor.

"Bond!" Q hissed into the silence. He tapped the control button that amplified communications to the entire lab. "Can you hear me? We're searching for Simpson."

"He's here." Bond's voice was quiet and somber; Q thought he could detect a note of genuine regret. "I've found him. I've got him. He's alive, but only just, and pretty badly cut up."

"Evac!" Q mouthed at Vargas, and she pressed her hand to her lips before nearly shrieking, "Medical evac! Now! _Now!_ " into her headset. Q shot her a look, but he could understand her distress; Simpson was new and none of them knew him well, but the lab staff had made something of a pet of him; he was young, relatively untried, a fresh-faced boy with freckles and earnest grey eyes. Vargas' words, too, took him back to the moment when Moneypenny had summoned aid for the injured and unconscious Bond.

"He was going to lead you to Ange…" Q had to pause and catch his breath, pity and anger tightening his throat. "Angelotti."

"I followed his trail," Bond replied, still quietly. "And found him. Angelotti as well. I put him down."

"You…"

"Don't worry. Angelotti's dead." Bond's words caused several of Q's staffers to slump with relief in their seats, and Vargas wiped tears from her eyes before whispering a violent "Yes!" and pounding her workstation with her fist.

"I'll do what I can for him," Bond said, clearly speaking of Simpson. "As for Angelotti's cache of state secrets, I'll remove anything pertaining to our government, and alert local authorities about the rest. The plutonium connection shouldn't be difficult for me to locate, after this."

Q cleared his throat. "Right. Medical evac's on the way, for Simpson."

Bond signed off, without speaking, and Q mopped at his brow. The lab staff bent their heads over their keyboards, subdued but hopeful, and Vargas fiddled with her headset repeatedly, until she was able to turn to the rest of the room an announce that Simpson had been picked up and was on his way to a medical center.

"They think he'll live," she whispered, and Q felt the taut muscles in his shoulders and neck relax a little. "007 managed to stabilize him a bit…that is, stop the bleeding…even before the medics got there."

Faces brightened from one end of the lab to the other. It was clear that Bond was now everybody's hero, and Q allowed himself a nod of approval that was only vaguely reluctant. Several heads turned towards him expectantly, and he supposed, _bloody fucking hell_ , that his deluded staff was of the opinion that 007 deserved special _attentions_ from their boss upon his return.

Q gritted his teeth and wondered how he had managed to get himself into this ridiculous situation.

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For the next two days, Q had intermittent verbal contact with 007, who seemed to be all over northern and northeastern Sicily in an effort to collar Signor Angelloti's plutonium contact. He finally achieved his goal after twenty-four hours of research, legwork, and the rapid seduction of one of Angelloti's ex-mistresses, a lady eager to see the downfall of her former lover's criminal associates.

Constanza Cangelosi, a strikingly beautiful (according to photographs in Angelloti's file) brunette, was a strong-willed personage of operatic emotions. Her vocal capacity was also operatic, as Q learned from having to listen to her single, heated encounter with Bond, in a hotel room in Syracuse. 007, for whatever reason, had neglected to remove his earpiece.

This was not terribly unusual; Bond sometimes abandoned the comm link when faced with an intimate situation, but just as often didn't bother. In the latter case, Q would simply sigh, raise his eyebrows, and wait until the sounds of passion were well over and done with, before renewing communication. On this particular occasion, he couldn't help but wonder whether Bond had left his earpiece in place on purpose.

By morning, Signorina Cangelosi had supplied Bond with the names and contact information of Angelotti's cohorts, as well as the location of their hideout and storage facility in an old, abandoned sulfur mine…and Q theorized that 007's ego must now be big as a house.

In a matter of hours, Bond managed to find both the criminals and their underground hideout. Angelotti's cohorts must have heard him coming because they attempted an ambush, but this time Bond cheated death with barely a scratch to show for it. All three men were dealt with in a matter of minutes, and the hideout and its contents were turned over to a special task force assigned to handle illegal trafficking in hazardous materials.

"Interesting," Bond mused via the comm link, very early the following morning. "One hears about Eastern European gangs dealing in nuclear materials, but I'd never have expected to find something like that here. The world's getting smaller all the time."

"Literally," Q replied, yawning; it was approaching the breakfast hour and he hadn't been home for two days. "As the Americans expect California to fall into the sea someday, and the Italians fear the same fate for Venice."

"Tell M everything's well taken care of. And I suppose you've had word that young Simpson will recover. I should be at HQ tomorrow noon, if the weather holds."

Simpson had been flown to Rome, where he was now in the trauma center of a medical facility. Bond's swift action on his behalf was being credited with saving his life. This, naturally, added lustre to the golden halo currently surrounding 007 in the eyes of the computer lab tech crew.

"Yes," said Q shortly. "Tanner told me. Don't forget I'll need a copy of your report. Incidentally, my staff was pleased that you rid the world of Mr Angelotti."

"One less amoral would-be arms dealer shopping radioactive what-have-you to ISIS," Bond said, sounding ridiculously wide awake. "I've a plane to catch at six tomorrow…tell Eve her restaurant recommendation was stellar."

"Right; she'll be thrilled," Q mumbled, reaching for what felt like his hundredth mug of Earl Grey. Once Bond had signed off, he turned the computer lab over to Michaels, who was delighted to be given command, and went home to bed.

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True to his word, Bond was in M's office roughly two hours after his plane touched down at Heathrow the next morning. Not long after, he appeared in the Q Branch computer lab, to return, so he said, his completely undamaged tech. Q, who whose nerves were still slightly on edge from their memorable dinner conversation (not to mention the recent events in Sicily), instantly took note of the look in 007's eyes and the set of his jaw, and realized that he was in for it now.

Everybody knew this about the field agents, about the Double O operatives in particular. When they returned from a difficult, dangerous, but successfully concluded mission, they were on virtual tenterhooks with excess energy, relief, and elevated ego, and almost always in search of release. Their method for relieving that particular brand of tension was also common knowledge, although it was rarely spoken about in the upper realms of the intelligence agency.

"Your tech, Quartermaster," Bond said complacently, handing over a set of undamaged objects. He now sported a golden tan from his few days in the Sicilian sun, and save for a welt along one cheekbone, in the process of fading from violet to a paler shade of purple, he looked as fit and well put together as always. "You may want to modify the translator; there's too long of a delay between the Sicilian and the English translation."

"We're aware of that, 007," Q replied evenly. "And we're working on it." He gathered up the objects Bond had returned, and carried them to his office; turning, after setting them on his desk, he found that Bond had followed him inside and was eyeing the various objects laid out on the worktable.

"How many times must I remind you not to _touch_ —" Q hissed as Bond reached for a pair of handsomely sculpted gold cufflinks. "And _yes_ , they dispense compressed knock-out gas, and _yes_ , you'll be getting a set, you and 009, for your next assignments."

"Ah," murmured Bond, sounding pleased as he withdrew his hand. "I don't suppose the dinner jacket…"

Q took a deep breath. "Believe it or not, the thing's ready for you. I'll have it sent over and you can try it on for size this afternoon."

"Excellent."

"Count yourself fortunate, 007," Q said. "You're the only operative to receive one of those."

Bond gave a crooked grin. "I'm meant to be the guinea pig, you mean. Not that I mind, particularly. Would you care for a drink after work?"

There it was. Perhaps Bond was not playing hard to get after all, but Q was still determined to sidestep actions that could conceivably lead to…anything he'd be bound to regret later.

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"M's quite pleased with you," Tanner said to Bond later that same day as he signed off on his mission report. "He may be considering you for the Artech assignment."

Bond raised his eyes skyward and sighed. Encrypted government information on a booby-trapped portable hard drive had been stolen by a former board member of the company—Artech—that had created the prototype for the device.

Moneypenny entered the room, steaming mug of tea in one hand. "I do hope he gives the job to 005. You could use a rest, James. Oh—we've been told young Simpson's doing well in hospital. And how's your face?" She pointed wordlessly at the dramatic streak of purple along Bond's cheekbone.

"I'm glad to hear about Simpson," Bond replied a little absently. "He's a brave lad. And this is only a bruise—it's nothing. M doesn't require me for anything tomorrow, does he?"

"No," drawled Moneypenny, watching him closely. "Not thinking of going AWOL, are you? I've worked with Mallory long enough to know not to test his forbearance too many times."

"Not AWOL, no," Bond said, still absently, and Moneypenny gave him an assessing glance. Bond ignored it.

The time spent in Sicily had not been without danger, and a threat to world peace, but once the threat had been neutralized, the day before his return, he had actually enjoyed one evening of quiet, with some time to himself. And while strolling through one of the public gardens of Palermo—complete with bona fide Roman ruins, banyan trees, and palms—he had come to the conclusion that his interest in MI6's Quartermaster was genuine, not ephemeral, and that he should at least attempt do something to resolve the awkward limbo in which they seemed to be dancing. In other words, he wanted to move forward, in spite of what he perceived as Q's dithering.

It wasn't only the post-mission euphoria and success-fueled lust, nor was it simply the lustrous gleam of the Quartermaster's hazel green eyes behind those glasses and beneath that wayward fringe, as he watched Bond stride into the computer lab. It had more to do with the odd mixture of pride (a kind of paternal pride? could his interest possibly be that perverse?) and affection he felt whenever he watched Q juggling numerous aspects of electronic surveillance at once in the computer lab, multi-tasking with verve and alternately scowling, biting his lower lip, raking his fingers through his dark hair, and muttering imprecations under his breath. Or sitting calmly in his glass-walled office, a little smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as the examined the specs of some new and ingenious device. Bond didn't think he'd ever been so fascinated with another human being in his adult life.

Coalescing memories as well as word of mouth left him well aware that his intentions with regard to Q would not be smiled upon by his superiors, even if Q was entirely agreeable to…to…whatever. But official disapproval of such things had never really stopped him before—hence the brief liaison with Moneypenny, which had ended in friendship—and, if he was successful in his quest, nobody at MI6 need find out.

His _quest_ , though? He didn't want Q to think that all he wanted was a quick and meaningless fuck. But it was bloody difficult to figure out what it was he really had in mind, himself.

"All right then?" Tanner asked under his breath, and Bond emerged from his reverie to the realization that he had been frowning intently, brows drawn together. Tanner evidently thought he was in pain, although what he was feeling at the moment was more akin to pain of the soul than anything else.

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The dinner jacket, displayed to good advantage on a padded hanger, hung in lonesome splendor from the clothes rack that had been placed in Q's office. Q eyed it appraisingly. He himself was not particularly fashion-conscious and had been, in the past, the target of a number of mildly disdainful comments from 007, on the subject of the cardigans and heavy, striped knitwear he wore in bad weather, when The Bunker was cold and damp. But fashion-conscious or not, he could hardly deny that this garment was an elegant piece of work. Q sighed, thinking of his own meager collection of formal wear; his salary, as head of Q Branch, was satisfactory, but with fewer than two years on the job, he was still forced to practice economy when it came to his wardrobe and lifestyle in general. He still took the Tube to work in the mornings, unless ordered not to by M.

The cut of the jacket was impeccable, the black lining shimmered like the best silk. Between it and the outer layer of fabric was the sheet of material that was not only impervious to the average bullet but also possessed a "magnetic, push-back" quality that repelled any fast-traveling metal object, be it bullet or stiletto. There were a few problems involved with the magnetic aspect, which could be reversed, or turned on or off, but the tech lab was working on that. For a moment, Q entertained himself with the thought of paper clips, cigarette lighters, a half-empty can of pop, suddenly flying through the air and adhering to James Bond's person as he walked by.

"Oh well done, Q," came Bond's voice, from behind him, and Q just managed to suppress a start of surprise. "I don't suppose I could have another, in white?"

"I can't take credit for the work, 007," Q replied, turning with what he hoped was the right amount of nonchalance. "We got in a fancy tailor from Mayfair to design it, and two people in the tech lab whipped it up. It's a bit heavier than it looks, but should provide decent protection from small arms fire."

Bond had already slipped the garment from its hanger and was shrugging himself into it. Q walked round behind him, to adjust the collar and set the shoulders. The reinforced, bullet-proof lined fabric was thick and felt unyielding, although it moved nicely enough with the body, and Q could feel, just slightly, the ripple of muscles beneath the cloth.

Before he could step back and away, Bond pivoted to face him, and was close, far too close. Q turned his head and saw that virtually every one of his computer lab staff was staring avidly at the two of them through the glass wall. He couldn't hear them, but Vargas turned to one of the other girls; her lips moved and it was plain as day that she was saying, "Do you think they're going to kiss now?"

Q took a decided step backward and gestured at the dinner jacket. Bond had fastened the single button in front. "It looks very well, 007, but I believe that button could be repositioned."

Bond looked amused. "Surely you don't mean to tell me, Q, that I'm getting fat?"

Q rolled his eyes. "No. But if you're going to use a holster—which is almost certain—there needs to be space for it. Leave this with me; it'll be modified by five."

The jacket was removed and replaced on the clothes rack. Bond stretched, rotating his shoulders a little, and said, "I'll be back for it at five, then. Drinks, afterward?"

Q coughed and cleared his throat. He opened his mouth to politely decline the invitation, and was horrified to hear himself say, "Will you never learn patience, 007? Weren't you taught, as a child, that good things come to those who wait?"


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8: Good Things**

"Good things come to those who wait."

Q could not believe, simply could not believe, that he had said that.

Neither could Bond, apparently, because he blinked and then his eyes opened a little wider than usual, before their usual steely expression returned and he gave one of his customary, brief nods before exiting Q's office. Q watched him make his way across the computer lab, and then forced himself to turn his attention to the electronic files he was required to sign off on, before sending them off to Moneypenny's computer.

One of his young computer lab staff was tasked with delivering Bond's dinner jacket to the production lab, where the necessary alteration would be made—Q reasoned that it would require far less than an hour to have the button moved. Having taken care of this relatively minor detail, he rang Moneypenny.

"Unless there's something that demands my attention today," he said in a rather grave voice, "I don't think I'll be staying past six. Ring me or message me if M has any objection."

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Feeling at loose ends—an unusual situation for the MI6 Quartermaster—Q went to The Bunker's gym for one of his infrequent workouts, showered, and returned to the computer lab shortly after five o'clock. As he wove between his minions' workstations, he sighted Bond's back, and the gleam of that pale hair, through the glass wall of his office, and hesitated for only a second before pushing open the door.

Bond was examining the dinner jacket, which had just been re-delivered, its single front button (which contained a miniaturized camera) moved to Q's specifications.

"Shall I try it on again?"

"You can if you want to," Q replied, shrugging. He watched in silence as 007 donned the jacket, adjusting the cuffs and then dealing with the button.

"If it's a trifle loose that's because you'll be wearing it with a holster. I told you we needed to make room for one."

"Right," said Bond, flexing one arm and eyeing the tailoring with appreciation. "This should work. Room 54 is set up for target practice, if you want to check. You can shoot at me to your heart's content, as long as you aim for the torso only."

Q cackled with laughter for a moment, before forcing his expression into one of sober rebuke. "Tempting as that offer is, 007, I can assure you that the garment has already been tested."

"I'm pleased you find _something_ about me to be tempting," Bond retorted blandly. "Although I'd no idea you harbored fantasies of violence."

Q rested both palms on his desk and released his breath with a loud sigh of exasperation. The sigh was inaudible to the computer lab, but the gesture caught the attention of his staff. As one, their faces turned in his direction and Q rolled his eyes.

Bond had removed the jacket, repositioned it on its hanger, and now took a step towards Q's desk. "About that drink after work."

Q sighed for the second time. "What about it? I assume you're going to ask me whether I would like to have it in a pub or at your flat."

A hint of a smile flickered at the corner of Bond's mouth and was gone. "Clever. Yes, but I was going to at least make an attempt at subtlety."

Q felt a similar hint of a smile playing across his own features. "Subtlety isn't perhaps your strong point. You're more of a blunt instrument, 007."

"I can be subtle when the occasion calls for it. If I might ask a personal question…"

Q raised both shoulders. "I imagine you'll ask it no matter what I say."

"Do you sleep with women or with men, Q?" Bond had taken another step in his general direction.

"Hardly subtle, I'm afraid," Q murmured, standing his ground but with eyes lowered. "I've slept with both, 007. There. That's the last you're going to hear from me on the subject. So, if you'd—"

He raised his eyes just in time to see 007 reach out to tap the button that turned the electro-optically switchable glass that separated Q's office from the computer lab from a transparent wall to a mirrored surface, shutting them away from the avid gaze of the Q Branch minions.

"Now," said Bond, taking a step towards Q so that he was close but not too close. "We can finish this conversation in some sort of privacy."

"I think this is ill-advised, Bond," Q replied in a chilly, precise little voice, but he could see his own face in the glass opposite him, and knew that he wasn't fooling anybody. A warm, peachy color was staining his cheekbones, and his eyes had gone wide and startled-looking, the hazel green nearly swallowed by the dilation of his pupils. "I hope you don't think you can _bully_ me…hardly a wise move under the circumstances."

"You can't say I'm being excessively predatory," Bond said levelly. "I wouldn't do this if you had made it clear that you disliked me, or found me completely unattractive and objectionable."

"You," Q replied, taking a step backward, "are _totally_ objectionable."

"And to what do you object, Quartermaster?"

"To everything about you," Q said stoutly, hoping he was not going to be asked to elaborate.

"Nothing specific, then?"

 _Oh, bloody hell._ "You're attractive, 007. I won't deny it, I don't think many people would. But you're not the sort of man who inspires confidence when it comes to, um, shall we say extracurricular activities of the carnal sort. You don't have relationships, Bond, you have conquests, and I don't think these things mean very much to you, in the long run. You satisfy your libido, which isn't necessarily wrong in and of itself. But I haven't any wish to become another notch on the bedpost or number on a list, thanks very much."

Bond looked at him somberly. "It's true, Q, I don't have relationships. You're right, there. But that doesn't indicate callousness. I've never foisted myself upon anybody with false pretenses. And if my recollections are accurate, at least one or two of my…whatever you want to call them…have ended in friendship...perhaps comradeship is an even better word."

Q almost smiled; Bond was referring, no doubt, to Eve Moneypenny.

"Yes. Perhaps. And having friends-with-benefits rather than love affairs makes good sense, given your profession. But it can be awkward, don't you think, when you work with a person on a regular basis and then suddenly throw sex into the mix. Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm not looking for relationships any more than you are. I'm no starry-eyed romantic. But don't you suppose—"

"We work together, Q, but we get on rather well, in spite of the bickering and banter. Surely you don't think I would jeopardize that. Anything else?"

Q cleared his throat. "I…I outrank you. Technically, that is."

"Does that matter?"

Bond was now lounging against Q's desk, looking entirely relaxed in spite of his keen stare, and Q felt a tiny spurt of anger.

"I'm not sure of exactly what it is you're trying to do, Bond, but—"

"You know exactly what it is I'd like to do."

Q swallowed hard and saw Bond's eyes focus on the involuntary flutter of his throat muscles.

"Actually I _don't_ know; how could I? I suppose there are several possibilities, really," he said finally, resorting to complete honesty because he could think of no other recourse. "If you want to put it that way. I don't know how you like to, er, _do it_ , and you don't know what I like, and I still think it would be a mistake. For all the reasons that I'm sure have occurred to you as well."

Bond raised a judicious eyebrow. "Ah. Since we're being straightforward, when it comes to what I _like_ , I've always been a believer in open-mindedness and experimentation. Certain things are, well, standard, but I'm generally open to suggestion." He spoke with a quiet mock seriousness even as he took a step forward. "Am I to assume from your statement, Quartermaster, that you've given the matter your consideration?"

For all of his fragile appearance, Q had always had a backbone, and was not easily unnerved, either by situations or individuals. However, the sight of 007 advancing on him was undeniably…unnerving.

"We're not doing this here," Q said, backing away. A quick glimpse behind him let him know that the distance to the wall was negligible. He stopped retreating and looked Bond straight in the eye, his own glance unflinching. "We shouldn't do this _anywhere_ …but definitely not here."

"Where, then?"

"My place," replied Q without thinking and then blushed, but his eyes were still fixed on Bond's and his expression remained unreadable. "As this is your idea, I think it only fair that you allow me the advantage."

"The advantage, Q?"

"Of home turf."

"Right," said Bond after a moment, and Q thought he could detect a flicker of amused respect in 007's eyes. "Fair enough. I'll meet you at six, then. You don't mind if I drive?"

"No, I don't," Q muttered, his voice and glance still steady despite his accelerating pulse rate. "If you agree not to exceed the speed limit and mind the traffic signals."

Bond's hard, thin-lipped mouth curved, unexpectedly, in a sudden grin. "I rather thought you could take care of the traffic lights."

Q looked affronted. "You want me to alter traffic patterns for the sole purpose of allowing you to satisfy your lust five minutes earlier?"

"Yes," replied Bond with calm equanimity. "Why not?"

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Bond drove. They spoke little, save when Q noted, in a somewhat subdued manner, that Bond had made a wrong turn. Bond simply sighed and said, no he hadn't; there was a new roadblock with construction on the usual route.

"You know the usual route to my—?" Q began, but Bond shrugged and said, "I've known it for weeks," in a voice that was supremely matter-of-fact.

When he turned to look at Q, there were no signals of any sort that he could make out from that youthful profile, with its almost but not quite retroussé nose, high cheekbones, and ruffled fringe. Their only other exchange was when Q gestured towards the street and mumbled, "I hope you're not thinking of parking a DB10 _here_ ," in a very dry voice.

Q's flat was in one of a cluster of anonymous-looking, modern buildings in which MI6 liked to house employees whose identities were meant to be kept secret. The interior was white and simple and would have been rather stark, but for the personal touches here and there: piles of books on the low coffee table, a lusterware ewer on the plain white mantelpiece, a baby grand piano, its dark satinwood gleaming under the lights, in one corner of the sitting room.

"Do you play?" Bond asked in a low voice, almost in Q's ear.

"I do," Q replied, and Bond could hear the effort it took to sound casual. "When I have the time. I even compose a little, for…for fun."

"For fun," Bond repeated, with a hint of a smile.

"Yes," said Q, already appearing to be less on edge. "It's more challenging, really, than composing on the computer. And far more satisfying, on a real instrument."

"I see," replied Bond, almost gently. He did not move closer, but he rested the fingers of one hand lightly on Q's shoulder. He felt Q gave a faint start, almost as if he could feel the heat of his fingertips—as if they were burning through the thin fabric of his shirt.

Q raised his head and looked at Bond steadily. "I suppose I should offer you a drink. Would you like—"

Before he could complete the offer, Bond moved the fingers from Q's shoulder to his jaw, running them from his earlobe to his chin. He could feel Q's pulse, just below his jawline, rapid and strong, and he purposefully kept his own breathing slow and even despite the tension building in his own body.

"—a drink," Q finished, rather faintly, lifting his chin in a defiant gesture that meant little in the light of what was clearly going to happen.

"Don't look so frightened, Q," Bond said quietly. There was a hint of laughter in his voice, although he was not even smiling. "I don't bite, you know. At least…not right away."

"I am not _afraid_ of you, 007," Q said in a level voice, but his eyes opened wide, the changeable hazel green suddenly brilliant in his still, angular face. "Should I be?"

"That depends, doesn't it?" Bond murmured, barely audible, and took an odd pleasure in the light of battle that sprang into those eyes. His fingers traced the lines of Q's cheekbones but he made no effort to bring their bodies into contact. "Q. Of course, this is strictly between us. You can't think I would allow anyone at HQ or elsewhere to know."

"No, I'll admit you're professional, as unpredictable as you are," said Q severely, and he stood still, unresisting, as Bond stepped closer and finally brought their mouths together.

It was a hard kiss, open-mouthed and demanding, and Bond felt Q clutch at his shoulders as he slid his own arms round his Quartermaster's narrow waist, pulling until they were chest to chest. The kiss, and the ones that followed, proved to be something of a revelation; that wide, thin-lipped mouth, from which Bond was accustomed to hearing pronouncements laden with irony, sublime self-confidence, and occasional snark, proved to be warm, satiny, and irresistible, with an adventurous tongue and sharp little teeth. When Bond's mouth finally released him, Q's head fell back and he gasped for breath, permitting access to that long, slender throat. Bond had been moving them, unconsciously, in the direction of the sofa, but now, somehow, they found themselves kneeling on the carpet and his fingers were at work on the buttons of Q's shirt.

"Don't rush so," Q said clearly, in spite of the racing pulse that Bond could feel beneath his fingers. "If we're going to do this, let's do it properly."

Bond was both surprised and slightly amused—this from a young man who had been so resistant to the entire enterprise!—but he reasoned, as well, that there was no need to move things along quickly. As Q's mouth was yielding and sweet, even when he brought his teeth into play, Bond found himself perfectly content to remain where he was, one hand cupping the sharp curve of Q's cheek, the other buried in the inky mass of his hair. Perhaps five minutes later, when both were panting and half-sprawled on the carpet, he drew away, breathing hard, and got to his feet. Q looked up at him with wide eyes in which the green was nearly swallowed by the black of his blown pupils, and Bond extended a hand to him. Q took it and pulled himself upright.

"Will you come to bed with me now, Q?"

"You have a nerve," Q replied, his voice only slightly jerky over his rapid gasps for air. "That's _my_ bed you're inviting me into."

"So it is."

"Permit me to rephrase, 007," said Q, both hands engaged in a vain attempt to put his flyaway curls into some semblance of order. "You have a _colossal_ nerve. Period. Down the hall to your right, please."

Bond smiled and then watched Q, remarkably boyish with his unbuttoned shirt and still-untamed hair, go all flushed with a combination of indignation and desire. But he said nothing, merely turned and walked down the hallway to the bedroom, with Q, still pink about the cheekbones, following behind.

At first glance, Q's bedroom looked a little like a monk's cell: spartan and white, with a minimum of furniture. But there was a Tabriz rug in varying shades of blue on the floor next to the bed, and the bedspread, though as white as the walls and ceiling, was heavy and woven with a subtle pattern. As Q explained sometime later, the Zen-like simplicity had the function of soothing the nerves after a stressful day of work, and preventing mental distraction.

("Distraction from what?" Bond was to ask as Q rolled his eyes.)

By the time Q switched on his bedside lamp, illuminating the room but only slightly, his cheeks had returned to their usual hue of shadowed ivory and he seemed to have regained his composure. Carefully and without haste, he removed his wristwatch and glasses, placing them on the table by the lamp, rubbed absently at the bridge of his nose where the spectacles had left light indentations, and began, without a word, to disrobe as Bond watched him.

Q undressed without any coquetry at all, save for the faint—and faintly tantalizing, faintly defiant—smile that flitted across his face as he stepped out of his trousers. He turned to drape his clothes over the back of a chair, giving Bond the opportunity to admire him from behind.

He had quite a beautiful back, actually, long and so lean, torso narrowing gracefully to a thin, delicate waist; flawless skin, a lovely pale olive. His hips were narrow, boyish, and when he turned partway round, Bond could see that his hipbones were sharp and the outlines of his ribs were just visible. And my God, how thin those arms were, although a taut play of muscle was discernible beneath the smoothness of his skin. Q looked waiflike enough to break between one's hands, but Bond suspected that in spite of his appearance of exaggerated fragility, the young Quartermaster was stronger than he looked. He seemed to be mostly lines and angles, but his small buttocks were gently rounded, and his lanky slimness was offset by the tendrils and waves of dark hair that now stood out, Medusa-like, from his head.

Bond didn't often compare prospective bed companions to works of painting or drawing; that is, he couldn't recall having done so in the past. However, something about Q reminded him irresistibly of watercolor images by Arthur Rackham, or the frail, long-limbed, spritelike figures from illustrations by the Danish artist Kay Nielsen.

These musings promptly went out the window as Q faced him fully, and the only thought that flashed through Bond's mind was that he needed to get that beautiful, bony, whippet-thin body into his arms before his infuriating Quartermaster rethought things and changed his mind.

"Disappointed?" Q said quietly, that little smile returning to his face, and Bond realized that he hadn't moved a muscle, either to remove his own clothing or approach the young man standing quietly by the bed.

"Oh God no," he replied wryly, finally crossing the room, unbuttoning his shirt as he reached Q's bed, and halting within an arm's reach of his motionless Quartermaster. He removed the shirt, and then his trousers, as Q watched him, his face still and enigmatic. Once divested of all clothing, Bond lifted his eyes to find Q studying him, eyes wide and dark, body as motionless as a statue.

He reached out and placed both hands on Q's waist, feeling the silky skin, tight over his middle. "Well, Quartermaster?"

"I think we should shut up now," Q said in a low voice, before stepping forward so that they were touching from shoulder to hip. In response, Bond slid one arm behind Q's back, the other behind his upper thighs, lifted and pushed, tumbling him neatly onto the bed and then following him down.

"Oh!" breathed Q, sounding startled, but his mouth opened at once, beneath Bond's, and the smooth, thin length of him arched upward against Bond's far more solid, sculpted frame as his hands slid down Bond's back. Bond stroked him slowly and carefully, now taking his time, and he could hear the faint beginnings of a moan at the back of Q's throat. Once he felt that fine-boned body settle into a state of trembling languor in his arms, he drew away a little and examined his companion with an approving eye. Seen up close, the Head of Q Branch looked even younger than usual, save for the little creases beneath and in the corners of his eyes: his skin was almost flawless, his long, thin limbs elegantly modeled. Bond brushed his palm over Q's arousal and heard the catch in Q's breath as he curled his fingers round it.

"Easy, Q," he whispered, free hand gentling his Quartermaster as though he were a skittish thoroughbred colt shying from the halter. Q's dark lashes fluttered and lifted and he raised his eyes with a vaguely reproachful look before his cool, long-fingered hand grasped Bond's own cock. Then his teeth closed lightly over Bond's lower lip as he ran one finger along the length, from root to tip, and then a second time, varying the pressure. Bond's involuntary exclamation was muffled against that hot, silky mouth, and Q, too, made a small, frantic sound as Bond's grip on him tightened and slid. When Bond rolled onto him, pressing him down into the mattress, he could feel the bones of Q's delicately molded chest; his nipples had gone hard, like little pebbles, and those sharp hipbones ground against his own as Q arched again. Bond stilled for a moment and Q reached out, groping for the drawer of the bedside table, sliding it open to reveal the necessaries within.

Bond slicked two fingers and breached Q as slowly and gently as he was able, under the circumstances, and then, when he sensed Q was ready, pushed up into him with the same excruciating care. Q looked and felt so fragile, and Bond had no wish to hurt him—and he felt Q flinch, just a little, before his hips lifted and his hands tightened on Bond's own hipbones to pull him further in. They rolled, entwined, from one side to the other, bedclothes tangling about them, Q's nails digging into Bond's back, and a little later Bond felt Q raise his knees and hook both legs round his waist. They spent almost simultaneously, spilling into and onto each other in a heated rush as Q shouted into Bond's shoulder and Bond's breath exploded outward into the crumpled pillow slip.

"Q," Bond mumbled, long minutes later when they could both breathe normally and were lying side by side, still partially embraced. "Not too rough, was I? You—"

"Not really, no," came Q's judicious whisper, and then he paused. His eyes were closed but his mouth curved slightly in a smile of creamy satisfaction. "There are times when a little roughness can be a good thing, 007."

"Stop calling me that," Bond replied, yawning mightily. He was about to continue in this vein when the delicious drowsiness that had been threatening to master him gained the upper hand. " _Your_ name may be classified information, but I…", and sleep overtook him mid-sentence, even as he felt Q pulling the bedclothes up over his shoulders.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9: Ruminations**

Bond reached for the lamp on the bedside table and switched it on.

It was some twenty-five minutes past twelve. As far as he could recall, this was usually the time when, lust having been sated, he eased himself out of bed so as not to awaken his sleeping companion (who, in any case, was nearly always female), dressed, and returned to his own flat, or his own hotel room if he was on assignment. At least—unless his dicey memory was playing tricks on him—that was what he had done in the past. It made things simpler: no need to make loverlike morning-after conversation, or listen to appeals for repeat performances in the future.

However, Bond felt no particular desire to roll out of bed and make a clean getaway. He was of the opinion that his young Quartermaster, once conscious, was hardly likely to say or demand anything loverlike. In fact, there was every possibility that he would order Bond out of his flat.

Getting out of the bed without waking Q would have been difficult anyway, because Q was sprawled against him, his head resting on Bond's upper arm. Bond could feel the tickle of the ruffled dark hair, and the fingers of his own hand had gone partly numb from the pressure.

Bond squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again. Fully awake and alert, he still found himself bemused by this admittedly peculiar scenario. He had been curious about Q, had, to his own surprise, desired him, but he had never formulated a plan for what might happen after, should they ever end up in bed together. He realized, of course, that this lack of strategy was because he had never been certain, until several hours earlier, that Q would actually consent to sleep with him. So…how to proceed? He cautiously slid his arm out from beneath Q's head without waking him, and turned on his side to examine him.

He was an oddly pretty thing, this youthful Head of Q Branch, with his artless curls and his boyish, bony, narrow face. Minus his clothes and his scholarly spectacles, he looked remarkably vulnerable, although Bond was well aware that, at least mentally and intellectually, he was anything but. Once awakened, would he fix Bond with an accusatory stare and suggest that the past few hours never be mentioned again? Or would he shrug his thin shoulders fatalistically and mutter something ironic about the perils and pitfalls of hormones and human nature? Would he—and Bond rather hoped this would be the case—be amenable to repeating their encounter, sometime in the near future? There had been pleasure, a great deal of pleasure, and it would be a shame not to pursue this again, especially since…

Especially since what? They were employed by the same foreign intelligence agency, crossed paths on a fairly regular basis. In the past, Bond had generally avoided involvement with the women with whom he rubbed elbows at MI6. With rare exceptions, he had never gone beyond amiable flirtation with the attractive female operatives, clerical personnel, and administrators who made eyes at him at HQ. (The only reason that fling with Eve Moneypenny had worked was because she had been as coolly rational about the whole thing as he had.) In this way, he reasoned, he had kept clear of awkward situations which, in any event, would have been disapproved of by higher-ups, including M. How could an arrangement, even a casual one, with Q be managed without causing problems of any sort? And did he, Bond, really care if his actions met with official disapproval? He had never cared much about being on the receiving end of disapproval, before.

Of course he had no wish to cause trouble for Q, who was young, relatively new to the field, and highly regarded by his superiors.

With these questions jostling about in his mind, Bond lowered himself gingerly onto his back, and then held his breath as Q rolled against him, mumbling in his sleep and then curling up like a child seeking warmth and reassurance. Moving carefully, Bond pulled the duvet up over his pale bare back.

"Mmph," said Q in a groggy voice, thick with sleep, his brow pressed against Bond's shoulder. The dark lashes lifted, and the hazel green eyes focused sharply and almost instantly on the face so close to his. Then he raised his head and stared in dismay at the clock on the bedside table. With an astonished, "Oh God, it's past midnight," he collapsed back onto the pillow, disordered locks spilling into his eyes like a silky waterfall.

"It's all right," Bond said calmly as Q stared at him between the curling strands. "It's Saturday. No need to rush off to HQ before dawn, unless you're on special assignment…which I don't think you are."

Q swallowed and cleared his throat. "No. No, I'm not. Sorry, did I wake you?"

"Not at all," Bond replied quietly. "I woke you. My turn to apologize."

Q rolled his eyes and made a sound that was halfway between a sigh and a chuckle. "I'm not accustomed to having overnight guests. At least, I haven't been for some time." He shot Bond a candid glance from those remarkable eyes. "And I rather imagined you'd be gone by the time I woke up…that is your usual MO, is it not?"

Bond's breath exploded in a snort of exasperation. "Is nothing sacred at MI6? Are my nocturnal and post-coital habits recorded in my bloody dossier, along with everything else they have on me, oh Head of Q Branch?"

Q cocked his head at this sardonic outburst, but he put one hand lightly on Bond's forearm. "No, there's nothing specific in your dossier, 007. I'm simply repeating what I've heard—rumor, in other words." He gave a little smile that was both ironic and oddly wistful. "I might add that you more than live up to your, um, reputation, if you don't mind my saying so. Although I expect you've heard that many times before."

Bond grunted. "Not 'many,' no. I've never made it a custom to go to bed with my colleagues, as I'm certain you're very well aware."

Q lowered his eyes, the ironic little smile still lingering on his lips. "I should feel privileged, then. Of course, I know I'm not the _only_ exception."

"Privilege has nothing to do with it," Bond retorted dryly, ignoring the oblique reference to Moneypenny. "And I don't give a damn about my bloody reputation." He turned onto his side again and drew Q against him, pleased at the sensation of those slender limbs meeting his own with sudden acquiescence. The last vestiges of sleep vanished as Q's hand ghosted over his hip, reaching between his legs, and he caught his breath as his body responded.

"Ah," whispered Q as Bond bent his head and bit softly at the fine-grained skin where Q's long, almost girlish throat met his shoulder, then moved on to nip at his elegant clavicles. Their legs intertwined as they rolled and twisted beneath the duvet, but there was no need for penetration this time; their hips ground together with a rhythm that grew in speed and intensity, need and the friction of skin against skin taking them nearly to the brink of orgasm, their hands—and God, what clever hands the Quartermaster had!—moving everywhere. It seemed as though he had barely touched Q's cock, grasping and working the smooth shaft with hard, calloused fingers, when the young man gasped and spent frantically into his hand; less than a minute later he found his own release against the taut, bony curve of Q's hip. He could hear Q's harsh panting close to his ear, and then the young man fell away from him to lie on his back, arms outflung, head thrown back against the pillows, eyes closed and lips parted.

They lay side by side for a long time, recovering. Bond could feel the sweat beginning to evaporate from his heated body, as the stickiness on his stomach also began to dry. Peering at Q—they had left the lamp on—he viewed the pearly sheen of moisture on the long throat and youthfully modeled chest with appreciation. Yes, Q was a pretty thing. His breathing was now even and regular, and it occurred to Bond that his Quartermaster might have fallen asleep.

"007," Q whispered, eyes still closed, taking Bond by surprise. "I don't suppose you'd like that drink now?"

Bond realized that he very much did want that drink. "Little mind reader. Yes, please. Not a _drink_ , though. Water would be fine."

Q sat up, slid out of bed, and then said, with only the slightest trace of self-consciousness, " _I_ could use a drink of water. And a bit of a wash," before disappearing into the bathroom. Bond heard the click of the light switch, followed by splashing sounds, and several minutes later Q reappeared, still naked, with a damp flannel in one hand and what looked to be a tooth mug filled with water in the other.

Bond took a long drink from the ice cold water in the mug and then made use of the warm, damp flannel to scrub away stickiness while Q perched on the edge of the bed and waited quietly. It was when he sat up to set both objects on the bedside table that his ear caught the infinitesimal sounds every field operative was trained to take note of: the noises of somebody else moving about in Q's flat. The sounds were very faint—whoever it was, was walking softly, taking care not to be heard—but they were real, and unless his hearing was as questionable as his memory, they were now in the hallway leading to Q's bedroom.

Oh God.

Surely _Q_ , of all people, had a security system of superior quality in place, on every window and door of his residence?

"Q," he said very quietly, against his Quartermaster's ear, having realized that his Walther was tucked into its holster, inside the jacket he had draped over a chair two arms-lengths away. "Q. There's somebody else in the flat."

"No there isn't," Q replied nonchalantly, and Bond hissed with impatience.

"In the hallway; don't move, there's—" and a second later, as he felt his muscles tensing for a leap onto whoever the intruder might be, something small and dark hurtled from the doorway onto the foot of the bed and then sat there looking at him.

Bond emitted a short, harsh bark of laughter, a mixture of released tension and relief.

"Bloody hell! It's a _cat_."

The cat in question eyed him briefly with what looked more like contempt that anything else, and calmly began to groom itself.

"I should have guessed."

"There are two of them, actually," Q said casually as Bond leveled a dubious stare at the interloper.

"Good lord. Who looks after them, then, when you need to stay late at HQ?"

"Mrs Meadowlark, two doors down the hall. She's retired, used to be one of the nurses in Medical, and was an old friend of…well, our previous M."

"Oh." Bond could only imagine the look of severe indignation on the previous M's face if she could witness him now, tucked into bed with the young man she had chosen as MI6 Quartermaster.

Q interrupted this particular reverie by yawning hugely and shoving his hair back from his face with both hands. He was still sitting on the edge of the bed, his back turned to his guest, and it was then that Bond noticed what he hadn't seen before: a catlike animal, a panther or a cheetah, tattooed small, in simple black outline, on one delicate shoulder blade.

He reached out and traced it with a finger, making Q shiver. "This is rather charming." Like Q the animal had long limbs; unlike him, a short, sleek pelt.

"Oh that. I had it done when they made me Quartermaster," murmured Q, who was beginning to sound drowsy. He rubbed at his eyes and yawned for a second time. "It seems like an age, since."

"Right about the time I met you."

"Yes," breathed Q, turning to give Bond a profile view of his slim, wiry frame. "Right about. I haven't any others." In spite of the drowsiness, his lowered voice was still crisp, elocution precise, and Bond bit back a smile.

"Are you going to throw me out, Head of Q Branch, or will you permit me to go back to sleep?"

Q gave him a look that was difficult to read. "It would be rude of me to put you out on the street at this hour, don't you think? I've no objection to your sleeping here tonight, 007. That is, if you don't mind my rising early. It's become habit."

Bond glanced at the clock; it was now ten minutes past two. "I see. An early riser. Of course you are. And do you have any morning rituals I should be aware of?"

"Some mornings I go for a run. While the neighborhood's still quiet. Lately, in the interest of time, and because M worries if I'm out and about too much on deserted streets, I've been running on the treadmill at HQ."

"You're not going to run this morning, are you?"

"Not bloody likely, when I can scarcely walk," Q replied wryly, sliding back into bed and dislodging the cat before switching off the lamp.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Didn't expect to see you up here," Tanner remarked as Q walked into the antechamber to M's office on Monday morning. "Nothing sinister to report, I hope."

"Not much online chatter amongst suspected evildoers today," Q said, squinting against the sunlight that was streaming through the window. "I've already checked. In fact, they've been remarkably quiet all week. That in itself is probably something to take note of." He uttered the last words over an enormous yawn.

"You need a day off," Tanner said sympathetically. "Not enough sleep over the weekend, eh?"

Q made a show of fiddling with his tablet, eyelids lowered. He hoped Tanner hadn't been alerted to the faint flush those words had brought to his cheekbones. "I suppose that could be said of any of us. Mallory doesn't need to see me today, does he?"

"He doesn't really need to see any of us," Tanner replied with obvious relief. Like most of their colleagues, he harbored considerable respect, even liking, for their relatively new Head of Secret Intelligence, but those feelings were not augmented by the protective warmth he had felt for their previous M. "He's meeting with some old army friends this afternoon. Cleared his schedule for them."

"Really," said Q, trying to sound interested. "That leaves you and Eve at loose ends, then?"

Tanner grimaced. "Not exactly," he muttered. "Plenty to do. But we needn't stay late this evening. Care to join us for a drink at six? 007's meeting us at The Acheron."

"Um," said Q hastily, forcing himself to look matter of fact, rather than startled. "I don't…don't know; probably can't get away. Look, let me get back to you."

"Right," Tanner replied, looking mildly surprised. "Everything all right, then?"

"Fine," said Q, heading for the door. Back in the computer lab, looking over the activities of his young subordinates without really seeing them, he exhaled slowly and considered Tanner's invitation. Drinks with Bond, and Tanner and Moneypenny, at six? Since Bond's departure from his flat on Saturday afternoon, he had had no communication with 007 save a text message he himself had sent that morning, informing Bond that specs for his new car were almost ready and that he should report to Q Branch on Wednesday to inspect them.

Nearly two days after the event, Q still found himself astonished by the time he and Bond had spent in the privacy of his residence. Not only by the sex, which had ranked very high on the scale of his past experience, but by their ease together in what had been an unquestionably uncommon situation. Upon waking for the second time Saturday morning, although at the much more civilized hour of seven, Q had found Bond already up and rummaging in his kitchen cupboards in search of some form of breakfast. He had set the electric coffee maker and located a pair of mugs, and had donned the white toweling robe Q kept hanging on the inside of his bathroom door. The two cats, warily keeping their distance, were eyeing the milk Bond had already set on the kitchen table.

Q, having dressed himself in a set of blue and white striped pyjamas, had felt at a loss as to how to address the Double O operative calmly searching amongst his knives for a bread slicer. But Bond, turning to look at him as he stood in the doorway, had the first word.

"And I thought you were the early riser. Coffee?"

"Yes, please. And I'm usually awake by six, if not earlier. Today's circumstances aren't exactly, um, usual, though."

"True," Bond replied with such cool self-assurance that Q was torn between the longing to hit him and the equally strong desire to laugh.

As they had eaten no dinner the night before, they were both ravenous, and Q, convinced that coffee and plain toast would hardly suffice, produced butter, jam, a pitcher of orange juice, and some eggs excavated from the back of his refrigerator. Within minutes he had turned out a simple omelet with chives and watched with satisfaction as Bond devoured his share. Two cups of coffee later, he had announced his intention to shower and shave and marched off to the bathroom, leaving 007 staring enigmatically into his own half-finished mug.

When Q emerged from the shower, he found Bond's clothes neatly folded and laid across a chair in the bedroom, but Bond, still in the toweling robe, was sitting on the edge of the bed. He appeared engrossed in an examination of Q's watch, a Rolex Daytona, beneath the light of the bedside lamp, but looked up as Q approached him.

"It was designed for race car drivers," Q said unnecessarily, to fill the silence with which Bond was now regarding him. "But I've had a few modifications made."

"I can imagine," Bond murmured dryly. "My clever youngster."

"I am neither _yours_ , nor a youngster," Q retorted with some asperity, but Bond only gave his crooked smile as he set the watch back on the bedside table.

"When you've reached my advanced years, Quartermaster, you're likely to regard everybody below the age of thirty-five a youngster."

"Hmm."

"And though I don't know your birth year, I rather doubt you're even near the age of thirty-five."

"I'm not," Q replied abruptly. "And, as we're speaking of watches, the tech lab has put the finishing touches to your refurbished Omega Seamaster. And specs for the new Aston Martin are forthcoming. This week, I should think."

"Excellent," murmured Bond, lifting his legs onto the bed and then bunching all the available pillows behind his head. "And I'm grateful for the breakfast. Now, I think I might have a little nap."

"Really," said Q flatly. "A nap."

"Care to join me?"

"For a _nap_?" said Q with disbelief, but he permitted Bond to hook two fingers in the towel he had wrapped round his waist and pull it neatly away.

"This is all completely unexpected, 007," was the only thing he managed to say before Bond's powerful arms drew him down onto the bed beside him.

Completely unexpected, and Q couldn't help feeling doubtful about the entire thing, but he curled himself into the dips and hollows of that athletic body, feeling the slide of muscle and sinew against him, the scars that dimpled and ridged his arms and torso. They kissed, slowly and carefully, Q putting both hands into that close-cropped fair hair, feeling the prickling of the shortest hairs above the strong, muscular neck. Bond's own hands were warm and sure, both practiced and confident, but to Q's surprise, this time he rolled onto his back, deliberately passive, and let Q do as he pleased with him. Breathing hard, eyes closed, head thrown back, he surrendered himself to Q's inquisitive, questing hands and mouth, moving only to arch his hips and bury his fingers in Q's tangled hair before he came.

They slept a little, afterward, and Q had come to himself three quarters of an hour past noon, to find Bond dressed and standing by the bed, looking down at him.

"Must go, Q," Bond said quietly as Q stared back. Then he gave a brief, closed-lipped smile and was gone, leaving Q to stare at the near-ruin of the bedclothes and wonder precisely what in hell was going on between the two of them.

Yes, well, he had spent a great deal of the rest of that day wondering, but by Sunday had made a concerted effort to put it behind him and stop thinking about it. As for the future, there was no sense in trying to predict anything. Either Bond would ignore this little episode and go on as if nothing had happened, or he wouldn't. And he, Q, was not going to tear himself to bits trying to figure 007 out.

So the thought of having drinks with Bond and fellow colleagues was disconcerting but Q had no doubt that he could maintain a cool demeanor in spite of…in spite of…

"Sir," Michaels said from his workstation across the room, causing Q's head to jerk upright. "We've intercepted some odd communiqués from that group in Portugal."

"What, again?" murmured Q, rubbing his temples with both fists. "What is it this time?"

"Coordinates of various well-frequented public venues. A national park in the U.S. An island resort in the South Pacific. A stadium in Mexico City. No other intel. What do you suppose it means, sir?"

"I have no idea…at the moment," Q replied honestly. "Carry on with that, Michaels, if you please. Get Vargas to work with you on this. If you turn something up, contact me. I'm leaving at a quarter of six, but you can ring me at any time."


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10: In Which Bond Tries to Thinks Things Out, Again  
**

The Acheron was a quiet pub not far from the MI6 ziggurat, small, sedate, and even more upscale than the place where Q had spent the evening with his three colleagues months earlier. It was more the sort of place in which Q could imagine M ensconced, rather than himself, Tanner, and Eve Moneypenny, but it was conveniently located and the staff were friendly but discrete. The walls were fine old paneled oak, the bar gleamed with the patina of use and wax polish, and subdued lighting was provided by handsome wall sconces. When Q arrived he found Tanner and Moneypenny already seated at a table towards the back of the room, starting in on their first round of drinks and arguing cheerfully about the mystifying rules and regulations of American football. Q paused at the bar long enough to order a lager, and then commandeered a seat next to Moneypenny.

"Sorry I'm late," Q said hastily, tugging his tie into place; the large gilt-framed mirror on the wall gave him back his reflection—slim and rather pale with fatigue, faint shadows beneath his eyes and glasses slightly askew beneath the waves of dark hair. He was secretly relieved that 007 was nowhere in sight. "Things picked up before I left, but Michaels can be trusted to handle the lab."

"He's a clever lad, Michaels," Tanner replied, shifting his chair. "And you're scarcely late; Bond hasn't arrived yet. M summoned him today; I believe he'll be sending him out again."

"Medical's pleased with his progress," Moneypenny added, frowning a little. "Even though his memory's still not one hundred percent."

"Not one hundred percent, no, but the tests are encouraging," came Bond's voice from just above their heads, and all three looked up to find him standing beside their table. "Until I've completely bollocksed something up on assignment, I suppose Mallory will continue to employ me."

"He hasn't given you the Florida job, has he?" Moneypenny queried, her brow still furrowed. "I would have thought he'd hand that off to Percy; he's something of a beach boy type, after all."

The corner of Bond's mouth quirked. "Be that as it may, yes, he's given me the job. I may not look even remotely like an American beach boy, but nevertheless—"

"That isn't to say you aren't impressive in a swimsuit, James," Moneypenny interrupted apologetically. " _And_ we have the photos to prove it."

Tanner rolled his eyes and Q snorted into his lager. Bond made no immediate reply but he smiled rather quizzically at Moneypenny as he seated himself opposite her, before muttering, "Thankfully, I have no recollection of those. And I don't know that I'll be spending any time at all on the beach."

Tanner lowered his stare from the ceiling. "I took the liberty of ordering your usual."

"Kind of you," Bond said cordially, his glance pausing briefly on his Quartermaster before moving along to Tanner. "I could certainly use it. M lectured me on what he called my legendary insubordinate behavior for half an hour."

"Hardly surprising," murmured Q, his own glance flickering at Bond and then away. "Given Q Branch's frustration with your misuse of retrieval protocols. It's astonishing that you were never court-martialed whilst in the Navy, Commander Bond."*

"I suppose _you_ think I should have been," Bond replied calmly, turning his gaze first to Q and then to the vodka martini that had just been set before him. "However, I don't know that I've been particularly insubordinate since my…my injury. M must have been referring to my behavior _before_. Thanks, Eve," he added as Moneypenny began signaling a server. "I'm ravenous. Medical put me through two stress tests this afternoon."

Food was delivered to their table and Q devoted the next twenty minutes to cleaning his plate of every scrap of his meal, eyes stubbornly fixed on his plate save when he turned to speak briefly to Moneypenny, or when it was necessary to respond to a question put to him by Tanner. Moneypenny was surreptitiously scanning the male clientele of the pub from beneath her eyelashes, while Bond and Tanner carried on what appeared to be an engrossing conversation on the subject of terror cells and their use of social media for communication and a recruiting tool.

"It's gotten much more widespread, obviously," Tanner said after going back and forth with Bond on the issue. "And much more sophisticated. But that's Q's area of expertise, not mine."

"Much more sophisticated, yes, that goes without saying," Q murmured. "But it isn't just terror cells and people with extremist religious or political views. There are groups out there who are in it simply for the money. Or for power, the sort that has nothing to do with religion or any particular political stance. Blackmail will never go out of style."

"Naturally," said Moneypenny with a touch of disdain. "No doubt cavemen used to blackmail each other over hunting territory…or desirable mates."

Q's mouth twitched a little. "No doubt. But there is a group we've been keeping an eye on, and we have no idea where they're based. In Europe, maybe. They've been scouting out large, popular public venues like stadiums and parks, but they don't appear to have any religious or social ideology. We think they're preparing to threaten these sites for ransom."

"In other words, common blackmailers on a large scale," Tanner said with distaste. "Any names?"

"Not a one," replied Q, frowning. "Not for the so-called leaders. Although the names of two or three of their 'contractors' have come up." He looked over at Bond and wrinkled his brow. "One name did strike me, although he seems a minor player. An old, er, acquaintance of yours…a Mr White. You do remember him?"

"Yes," Bond said dryly. "That memory's quite distinct, thanks."

"Thank goodness," Moneypenny interjected, and Bond gave a hint of a smile.

"Our charming Quartermaster thinks I'm headed into my dotage."

"Oh, not just yet," Q murmured with acid sweetness. "I'd say you have at least another decade before dotage comes knocking."

Tanner chuckled and Bond raised his eyebrows, but Moneypenny said, "Oh, honestly, Q!" and gave him a sharp look that he lowered his eyes to avoid.

"Strange, isn't it," Tanner muttered. "Mr White? Haven't heard that name in years, eh Q?"

"He was before my time," Q retorted, allowing himself to smile. "But I'm aware of who he was…is."

"A dinosaur," Tanner continued, wrinkling his brow. "But still dangerous if he chooses to be an online presence, I imagine. What do you say, Bond?"

"Oh, I leave decisions on that score to our clever, clever Q," Bond replied blandly, and Q gritted his teeth.

"That can't be all, surely," Tanner persisted. "That is, you have more insight into the sort of person we're dealing with here."

"I've got a bad feeling about this," Bond murmured after a pause, unconsciously frowning at his drink.

"Channeling Han Solo, are we?" Q snapped. "Leave the questions about electronic surveillance up to Q Branch, 007. I should think we'll manage to sort it out. In the meantime, don't forget you have an appointment with us to go over the specs for your new Aston. Wednesday, four o'clock sharp."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

On Wednesday—at four o'clock sharp—Bond rapped on the door to Q's glassed-in office before pushing it open.

"Right on time," Q observed, rising from behind the assortment of objects on his desk. "The vehicle's in Lab Five. If you'll follow me."

Bond made no response but gave a curt nod, and Q said crisply, to fill the silence, "She's coming along well, though we're a bit behind schedule. No, please don't touch those, 007; we're working on a new series of mods and the adhesive hasn't dried yet."

"Sorry," said Bond with an affable half-smile, turning from the desk. "I'll do my best not to touch anything until I'm granted permission." He spoke levelly but there was a touch—just a touch—of innuendo in his baritone delivery, and Q bit his lip but did not reply. Instead, he silently led the way to the workroom in question, with Bond ambling along at his side. When they entered the large, echoing space, well lit and peopled with an assortment of technicians, Q stopped in front of the bay containing the as yet unfinished Aston, noting the interest with which his staff glanced at their visitor before returning to their tasks.

As was almost always the case, 007 was impeccably dressed, in yet another of his infuriatingly perfect bespoke suits, charcoal grey this time, and Q caught the glint of heavy gold cufflinks at his wrists. Q himself wore a practical dark jacket over his white shirt, his technicians sported pale coveralls or visors and protective gear, but Bond, in his impeccably tailored suit and enviable blue-grey tie, looked as out of place in the workshop as a Tom Ford model at a mud-wrestling contest. And damn it all to hell, he was colossally good-looking. Q glimpsed three of his female technicians, and at least one male, peering at him when they thought their boss's eyes were elsewhere.

"She's coming along well," Q said again, unnecessarily, as Bond toured round the car, stripped to its metal framework and raised on blocks. "We'll give you a printout of the specs with a list of modifications. If you'd care to look them over, we can discuss them. You might, well, find it helpful."

"Because of my dicey memory, you mean?"

Q coughed and cleared his throat. "No…that isn't what I meant." Was James Bloody Bond intent on making him feel uncomfortable? Bond was now peering into the naked interior, and Q felt compelled to say, "No worries, it'll be leather and walnut inside, as usual, and the sound system won't disappoint you. The defensive features and weaponry are nearly complete."

"You've modified the engine?"

"We removed the Vantage V8 engine it came with," Q explained, waving his hand in the direction of the chassis. "And replaced it with a V12. And we were going to put the buttons for special features on the dashboard, but they should work on the gear shaft instea—"

"How many models are you making, Q?" Bond interrupted, still peering at the interior with narrowed eyes. "Dare I ask whether this is only for me?"

Q gave a miniscule shrug. "That was the original plan. Naturally, 009 was hoping for one himself. It's mostly up to M, although I can certainly make a _recommendation_."

"In that case," Bond said casually, stepping back from the car and turning to face Q, "perhaps you'll _recommend_ that this vehicle go to me."

"Ah," said Q, grimacing as he met Bond's ambiguous stare. "I knew there had to be an ulterior motive for our…" He stopped abruptly, as much with frustration with himself for even bringing up the subject as with annoyance at the hint of amusement in 007's eyes. "I just might make that _recommendation_ on the condition that you avoid sending my staff into a frenzy by completely ignoring directions and instructions they provide you with, during this new mission."

"Agreed," Bond replied with his usual cool equanimity. He took a step towards Q. "Any other conditions?"

"None that I can think of, 007," Q said vigorously, stepping back. "And if you don't hold to your promise, I'll put _Vargas_ on the comms with you, and she'll lecture you halfway to Fort Lauderdale."

"Right," said Bond mildly, dismissing the threat of Vargas as he reached out to touch the shining metal of the Aston's skeleton, following the lines of the window aperture; Q remembered that hand moving on _him_ , and swallowed. "Drinks Friday, at seven?"

"Um," blurted Q, taken aback. Bond was looking at him with his head cocked to one side. This invitation, coming out of the blue, surprised him a little; he had not seriously expected Bond to pursue a second encounter, and _he himself_ certainly was not going to initiate one.

"Dinner after?" Bond went on, one eyebrow raised, after a moment of silence. "We can discuss the specs then, if you insist."

"007, I don't really—" Q began, flushing, but Bond had already removed his hand from the Aston's window frame and was heading for the door.

"Right," he said briskly, without waiting for Q to continue. "I'll collect you at half past six, then."

"I should have had you arrested for kidnapping, that last time you dragged me off to a restaurant," Q muttered, and saw Bond's mouth curve in his lopsided grin. The sight of his own staff turning to stare at him at the word _kidnapping_ was enough to make him clamp his jaw shut with the realization that his face had probably gone crimson.

"And I never said yes," he added a little testily. If there was one thing he was sure of, it was that Double O Fucking Seven was not going to take him for granted.

"Didn't you?" said Bond over his shoulder, and the door closed behind him, leaving Q to scowl at the space he had occupied a moment before, aware that most of his technicians were eyeing him with more than a little astonishment.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Q's specs for the Aston Martin occupied Bond for a mere hour, that Wednesday evening, and, prior to Friday, he kept himself occupied with going through old files, old correspondence, and every souvenir he'd ever brought back to London from his days in the Navy and then in the Secret Service. A leather briefcase from Italy, stuffed with old photos. Books and music discs he wasn't certain he could remember purchasing. A ceramic vase that looked as though it could have come from an excavation in Crete. A pair of sky blue bathing shorts. Certain objects set off a _ping_ in his brain—at least, that seemed to be the case—that brought back a flood of memories; others had no mental impact at all. It was disturbing, it was irritating; would he never regain those bits and pieces of his life his injury had taken away? By Friday afternoon, however, he had set all of this aside. He was in need of a good meal, of interesting company, and, if Q was willing, enough pleasure to wipe out the sense of frustration that plagued him whenever he thought about what he called, but only to himself, his disability.

It didn't occur to him to seek out any of the women with whom he had, in the past, shared evenings of casual friendship, casual sex. As delightful and obliging as they might be, none were the sort of bed companion with whom he could talk about any aspect, no matter how small, of his career.

And, anyway, Q had certainly been more than delightful, when it came to what they had done in bed.

Q was waiting for him on the pavement at half past six, wearing a deceptively docile expression, when Bond pulled up to the curb in his old Aston DB9.

"This is holding up quite nicely," Q commented as he slid into the front passenger's seat. "Considering all it's been through. Not terribly different from the one we're working on now, save for the weaponry."

"Hmm," was Bond's only response as he maneuvered the car through London's evening traffic. "Will Italian food suit you, Quartermaster? Although I've had a particular hankering for Jamaican _aki_ with salt fish, I haven't found a single place in London that prepares it properly."

"I can't say I'm familiar with Jamaican cuisine," Q said, wrinkling his brow, and five minutes later Bond stopped close to a small restaurant with the hopeful name "Per Piacere" inscribed above the door in gold-colored letters.

They sat at a table towards the back of the room and ate pasta with seafood and olives, and a green salad, and did justice to a bottle of excellent white wine. This was followed by raspberries with cream, and small cups of terrifyingly strong espresso. The latter was so powerful that by the time they were back in Bond's car, driving towards Q's residence, they were both blinking from the caffeine rush, and wide awake.

Once inside Q's flat, Bond glanced about in the dimness ("Mrs Meadowlark has seen to the cats," Q informed him as he bolted the door), and followed Q into the bedroom, where he switched on the bedside light and took a deep breath. The little room with its white walls and ceiling, white bed, and blue Tabriz rug spoke to him of quiet serenity; he could see what Q had meant, that first time, when he said that its environment relaxed him. At the moment, however, relaxation was the last thing he had on his mind. Q was facing him, only a few paces distant, and Bond moved towards him until he was an arm's length away. He raised one hand and watched his Quartermaster give a slight start and take one small, involuntary step backward, like a nervous thoroughbred colt at the approach of a trainer.

"Little icicle," Bond murmured. His hand closed round Q's tie and he pulled, not too hard, to draw him closer.

"You're a fine one to talk," Q replied, barely audible, as Bond dealt rapidly and expertly with the knot of the tie before tugging it off and dropping it to the floor. "You're the one they call a stone-cold killer."

"Do they, really," Bond said, still under his breath, as he slid one hand and then the other under Q's shirt. The smoothness of that lithe, wiry body, and the hint of bergamot and citrus, coupled with Q's own faintly peppery scent, were intoxicating. "And is that what you think of me, head of Q Branch?"

"Not exactly," said Q, and went silent as he stood unmoving, arms at his sides, while Bond made him naked. Then, as Bond undressed, he drew aside the bedclothes and lay back against the pillows, hair like a star-shaped smudge of ink against the pale linen, eyes half closed but fixed on Bond's every movement.

"Not exactly?" Bond repeated in a whisper as he slid into the bed beside him. Q continued to stare at him solemnly, so Bond rested one hand lightly on his prominent hip bone and surveyed him through narrowed eyes.

"We really must feed you up, Quartermaster, before you disappear altogether."

Q sighed. "I'm sorry if you don't like the way I look, 007. I've always been this way and there isn't much I can do about it. I'm afraid it's take it or leave it."

"I'll take it," Bond replied philosophically and promptly rolled on top. "And I never said I didn't like it."

Q stirred under him, but seemed incapable of any form of repartee, and Bond took the opportunity to force Q's lips open beneath his and slide his tongue in…with a degree of caution, as he already knew that his Quartermaster's teeth were nearly as sharp as a kitten's. He felt light as a thistledown in Bond's arms, but Bond could also feel the tensile strength of those delicate arms and legs. Q's hands were now exploring him as avidly as his own were investigating the dips and hollows of that slim torso and long limbs. Their legs intertwined, laced together, but Bond pushed Q's apart and then raised himself on his elbows to look down into that flushed and youthful face.

"I'll be careful with you," he said very quietly, remembering the frenzy of their initial coupling, and how Q had flinched for just a moment at first entry. He was breathing hard, aching to go inside, but he paused for a little, stroking the satiny skin of Q's narrow, boyish hips. "You look as though someone could break you in two."

Q looked up through the screen of his lashes. "I'm not that fragile, Bond. In fact, I'm sure I can take whatever you care to give me."

His tone of voice was challenging, and Bond smiled a little. "Oh?" he said conversationally, taking Q's waist in a firm grasp as he settled himself between his knees.

Q lowered his eyelashes so that only a glint of catlike green was visible. "Do your worst, 007. I'm quite ready for— _AH!_ "

"Sorry," murmured Bond, almost but not quite contritely. "If that was a bit sudden."

"No apologies necessary," panted Q, and his thighs slid, like a silky caress, against Bond's hips. "And do it again, please."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Dawn was just beginning to put in an appearance when Bond opened his eyes, took a deep breath, and stretched a little before turning to look at his still-sleeping companion. It was, he mused, strangely peaceful to be lying in bed, watching the white wall facing the window turn slowly pink with the first hint of sunrise, which eventually touched the pillow where Q's tousled head lay with the same rosy color. Letting his eyelids fall shut again, Bond felt the oddest sensation stealing over him—a peculiar, possessive tenderness such as he had never felt for another human being. Not even for Vesper, for whom he had certainly felt a kind of love but not this unexpected urge to protect and nurture. Vesper, after all, had seemed—up until her final moments—a person quite able to take care of herself. Which was not to say that Q couldn't; he was obviously very self-sufficient and not at all in need of anyone to watch over him. Perhaps it was something about the contrast between his elfin physique and his dogged endurance, those expressive eyes whose glance could change from doe-like serenity to gimlet-edged sharpness in an instant—a combination of vulnerable looks with steely intelligence, focus, and drive—that made Bond feel the way that he did. Q shifted a little in his sleep and Bond, opening his eyes again, tugged the duvet up over his shoulders, tucking it carefully beneath his chin as he mentally scoffed at himself for such uncharacteristically sentimental thoughts.

Q's cats were tussling at the foot of the bed, and Bond eyed them for a moment with the hope that they weren't planning to bring their antics any closer. When he turned his gaze back to the pillows, he found that his Quartermaster had also awakened and was blinking at him owlishly.

"You're rather astonishing, 007," said Q faintly but analytically. "Last night was about as close as I've come to an out-of-body experience in a very long time."

"If that's meant to be a compliment, thank you," Bond murmured in what he hoped was a serious tone of voice, biting the inside of his lip so as not to smile.

"A compliment? More of an observation, perhaps," Q replied, still faintly, as he unwound himself from a corner of the duvet and then sat up gingerly, light stubble emphasizing his morning pallor, hair sticking out in all directions. "I need a shower…I suppose you'd like coffee after."

Bond made a noise of acquiescence, and lay back as Q took himself off to the bathroom, humming some unrecognizable tune under his breath. By the time he returned to the bedroom, wrapped in a bath sheet, Bond was sitting at the foot of the bed, wearing Q's toweling robe, appropriated from the hook inside the bathroom door. His jacket had been picked up off the floor and was draped over a chair; his shoulder holster and the contents of the jacket's inside pocket—an electronic key card, a mobile phone, and a miniature notebook—were lined up neatly on the bedside table.

"I got one of these as well," Q said, looking at the thin, pocket-sized, leather-covered book. "From Management, at Christmas. They must order them in bulk. But I would have thought they'd give the field agents something a bit nicer."

"They must be tightening the holiday budget," Bond replied, shoving aside the notebook and reaching for his mobile to check for messages. It was a relief to see that there were none. "But that's actually useful—I do take notes in it."

"Really," said Q with a smile of angelic irony. "Fancy using a notebook for taking notes."

"My God, are you always this snarky?" Bond murmured with amusement. "You, I imagine, key everything into your phone, or your tablet, and are in peril of forgetting _how_ to write at all." He stood up and stretched, brushing cat hair from the front of the robe. "I suppose we should see if there's anything in your kitchen we can eat, or will we need to send out for takeaway?"


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11: Fair Exchange**

Bond returned from his Florida assignment with a sprained wrist, superficial lacerations to his left side, and equipment that was damaged almost beyond restoration.

What had begun as a relatively uncomplicated investigation into the overseas assassination of a British businessman with ties to the drug trade had become, rapidly, more complicated. The killing, it was discovered, was tied to plans to blackmail state government officials into giving the blackmailers access to one of Florida's five nuclear reactors. The unsavory characters in the process of blackmailing the officials—by threatening to release proof of their extensive drug use to the internet—were neatly done away with by Bond, but one of their henchman contrived to escape both 007 and local FBI personnel.

"How the devil did he manage that?" M asked, unconsciously drumming his fingers on his desk.

"He had backup; a surprise to us. We were heavily outnumbered, I'm afraid, sir."

"Couldn't be helped, then," M replied fatalistically, fingers coming to a halt. "There was nothing you could have done about it, 007. He seems to have been a very minor player in any event, this—what did you say his name was, Sciarra?"*

"Marco Sciarra," said Bond quietly. "Yes, sir."

"Ever heard of the man before now?"

"I'm not certain," Bond responded, still quietly. "Perhaps that's among the memories I've lost. But you're right, sir; I don't think there's anything we can do about him at the moment."*

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Congratulations on another mission accomplished," Q said crisply when Bond appeared in the computer lab after his meeting and debriefing with M. "Oh God," he added at the sight of the fragments Bond set gently on the surface of his workstation.

"Sorry," Bond replied, shrugging as he gestured at the shattered tech without—as usual—a hint of genuine apology. "And they worked very well, until…"

Q sighed as Bond handed over the plastic garment bag containing his dinner jacket. The protective lining was still completely intact, but the puncture-proof outer fabric, as tough and resilient as it was, bore scorch marks and a long, visible scrape, left by a knife that would have torn clear through any ordinary cloth. "And you've worn this on _one_ occasion only."

"Can it be repaired?"

Q took a long, slow breath. "Certainly it can be repaired, 007. I'll have someone see to it as soon as our schedule's clear."

"Ah, and now that I think on it…have you lot in Q Branch surveillance come across a man by the name of Sciarra? M's curious as well."

"Not that I know of. In what context? We don't do electronic surveillance of just anybody," Q replied flatly. "We are not the NSA."

Bond shrugged and then reached into his pocket—Q noticed he was wearing an unobtrusive pressure bandage round his sprained wrist—and withdrew the miniscule comm link earpiece. Q held out his hand and Bond dropped it into his palm.

"Well, Q, at least this thing is undamaged."

"Clearly," Q drawled wryly. Prior to his discovery of the blackmail plot, Bond's investigation of the businessman's death had involved an evening spent with one of said businessman's numerous female friends, a voluptuous nightclub singer appropriately named Sara Alto. As Q rather suspected he might, 007 had left his earpiece in place, and Q had been subjected to an hour of remarkable sound effects, emanating mostly from the lady.

Of this Q resolutely made no mention whatsoever, and when Bond inquired about the progress of the Aston DB10, he only said, mildly, "Will you _never_ learn patience, 007?"

"It seems to me I've heard you say those words before," Bond retorted, but when Q remained silent he shrugged amiably, with a brief flash of his crooked grin. As he turned in the direction of the exit, he said quietly enough to avoid being heard by Q's minions, "I can be patient until Friday, if you'll join me for dinner then, at eight."

He promptly vanished without waiting for a reply, leaving Q to face his staff, most of whom were eyeing him surreptitiously. What 007 had been up to with that nightclub singer in Florida—in the line of duty, of course—was common knowledge by now, and it was plain that some of them had been hoping for a row.

Which they were not going to get. Q had no feelings one way or the other about what Bond did with his marks while on mission; he harbored no jealousy of Miss Alto, or whatever her name was, and he had no intention of encouraging his subordinates to think that James Bond and the head of Q Branch were involved in some sort of ridiculously tumultuous, teenager-ish, passionate affair. Because they _weren't_ , Q thought dryly; whatever it was that was going on between them, he would hardly characterize it as a _passionate affair_. Such things were for youthful romantics and ordinary civilians, not for hardened, cynical Double O field operatives and coolly rational, technology-focused code breakers and inventors of espionage gadgetry.

As for Friday, Q supposed there was little point in worrying about that now. It was enough that they had established a precedent. It only remained to see where things would go from there. It was pointless to deny that during the hour or so that he had been obliged to listen to Bond's encounter with the woman in Florida, her cries and moans had conjured up memories of the muscles of Bond's back flexing beneath his hands, the piston-like drive of his hips, the solid musculature of Bond's chest pressed to his, the heat and intensity that built up between their taut and straining bodies. And those hard, calloused, lethal hands could be as meticulous and gentle as a surgeon's. Not at all the sort of thing the MI6 Quartermaster should be thinking about in the midst of his workplace, _bloody fuck_.

A mug of steaming Earl Grey was suddenly thrust beneath Q's nose, and he lifted his head to find Vargas at his side, eyes narrowed with curiosity.

"Is everything quite all right, sir?"

Somewhat to his amusement, Q could see Michaels on the other side of the room, gesturing at her to shut up.

"Quite all right, thank you, Miss Vargas," he said briskly, accepting the mug, taking a fortifying swallow, and very nearly scalding his tongue. "Would you be so kind as to take 007's tech—what's left of it—to the workshop? I think we'll be able to salvage most of it, which is better than he deserves."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Later the same day, Q received a message from M's office. Mallory would be meeting with personnel from the PM's office Friday afternoon, and one or two of their tech people had requested a tour of Q Branch. Having no idea of how long this would take, Q sent a brief text message to Bond, bowing out of any dinner plans for Friday evening and explaining why this was necessary.

Within less than an hour, his mobile pinged, and a return message from Bond appeared on the screen: "Understood. Saturday then."

"Of all the self-centered…" Q muttered to himself; it was obvious that it had never even occurred to 007 that he might be otherwise engaged. Did Bond expect him to drop everything and anything he might have planned, for the sake of a few hours of his company? "Arrogant bastard. Conceited prick." Thankfully, he was en route to M's office in the main building and not within earshot of any of his computer lab staff.

"A pity about Friday," Moneypenny said to him as he entered Q's anteroom. "I hope the PM's people won't keep you very long. And I was hoping we could all go out for a drink after six!"

"I'll show them the computer lab and the workshops," Q replied, frowning a little. "But I don't know that M would want them to see everything we're working on."

"You can ask him yourself," Moneypenny sighed, pressing her fingertips to her temples. "God, but I have a headache! Tanner's in there with him now, but I know he'll want to see you, after. Oh, before I forget…he's pleased with the new features you suggested for the field agents' home security systems, and wants you to implement them. 007's first."

"Bond's? Why his, first?"

Moneypenny shrugged delicately and raised both eyebrows. "I don't know. It may be that he thinks Bond has more enemies than most. Or that he's more vulnerable than usual, given his memory issues."

"Right," said Q reluctantly, after a moment. "I'll set up a schedule for installation. If M wants 007's system done first, I'll have it dealt with before next week. I'll do it myself, if necessary."

On Saturday, perhaps. That might, at least, move their activities from his own flat to Bond's…a fair exchange.

"A good plan," Moneypenny was saying brightly, and Q saw that she was smiling. "I'm certain Bond would rather you did it than anybody else."

"Why?" said Q, sharply, but she only smiled at him again before turning to rummage in her desk for an aspirin, just as Tanner emerged from the inner sanctum.

"Ah, Q!" Tanner said with a kind of relief, and Q theorized that M was not in the happiest frame of mind. "Perfect timing. He'll see you now."

"Thanks," said Q, conscientiously straightening his tie. "Oh, I neglected to mention…if there's a lull in activity next week, we can try out the newly renovated practice room; there's plenty of space for swordplay. Believe it or not, we have a new set of foils, and two new electrically-wired vests."

"Excellent," murmured Tanner, opening the baize door and gesturing Q within. "I don't suppose 007 will join us again?"

"No, why ever should he?" Q replied coolly. It was becoming clear as crystal that even the higher-ups at HQ now believed something was going on between himself and Bond. What would happen if that should come to Mallory's ears, Q didn't even want to think about.

Rumors of this sort were always difficult to dispel. The only way Q could imagine doing so would be to fling himself into somebody else's arms—not a scenario he would even contemplate. Ah well, Q reasoned dourly, it's simply a matter of time before 007 tires of me and finds some other paramour to interest him, and the gossip will die down on its own.

His mobile pinged, and before stepping into M's office, he made a rapid check of messages. There was only one, from 007.

"M tells me need home security upgrade. Granted request for you to do it personally."

"Smug bastard," Q said to himself, but without heat, as he entered the office. It had been a long day, and he felt, suddenly, tired, defeated, and out of his emotional depth. "Saturday it is, then," he texted back, before dropping into the chair facing Mallory.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Shortly before eight o'clock on Saturday, Bond eyed the electronic keypad panel of his flat's security system with dubious satisfaction before settling down to wait for Q. It was a reliable system, easy to set, monitor, or deactivate, and he had no idea why M wished to have it upgraded.

He had given Q his address, although he suspected Q already knew it, and when he went to the front windows to pull the curtains to, he saw his Quartermaster had already arrived and was standing in the middle of the road. He had a rucksack slung over one shoulder and was surveying the cream-colored Victorian façade of his building—a former townhouse of generous size that had been divided up into several flats**—with his brows drawn together.

The moment Q entered the building Bond went to the door of his flat, but didn't open it until a glance through the peephole told him that Q was standing in front of it. He then fastened the lock behind him, and gestured him into the sitting room, watching Q's eyes skim the mostly unadorned white walls, the bare wood floor, the piles of books Bond had set here and there on the floor as he removed them from various storage boxes. Q's gaze moved to the handsome bay windows facing the street, and he grimaced. "Those must have been hell to fit with bullet-proof glass. M ordered it done when you moved in."

"Kind of him, to want to keep me alive," Bond said with a touch of irony. "But I've kept a low profile; I don't think anyone who might want me dead knows where I live."

"I should hope not," said Q severely. He unhooked the rucksack from his shoulder, still looking about him with obvious curiosity.

"Does the place meet with your approval, Head of Q Branch?"

"Quite pleasant, Notting Hill," Q replied, setting the rucksack on the floor. "Although for you I might have expected a flat in Belgravia or Mayfair. To go with all of those bespoke suits."

Bond rolled his eyes. "I had no interest in purchasing living quarters in either of those places. This street's fairly quiet…which is what I wanted in the way of a flat. Anyway, it was all I could find, after MI6 sold my old one."

"And whose fault was that?" Q countered, unfastening the flap of the rucksack and pulling it open. "I've brought the new parts for your alarm system. Shall I install them now, or after our dinner? Where are we going, by the way?"

"Oh," Bond said casually, peering into the rucksack. "I thought rather than go out, we might eat in this evening."

Q wrinkled his brow with what looked like astonishment. "You're not planning on _cooking_ something, 007." It was plain that the very idea was, to Q's mind, almost preposterous.

"Certainly not. I bought a few things and put them in the kitchen, if you'd like to inspect them," Bond said, still casually. "It's just through there. And you can hang that _thing_ in the hall wardrobe," he added, gesturing at Q's shabby anorak, which he had shrugged off and now clutched against his chest. "There's no need to cling to it like that unless you're planning to make a run for it, later."

"If I were, I'd simply put it in the bedroom," Q replied, looking about the unfamiliar surroundings for a door or hallway to the room in question. Bond sensed that he was yearning to prowl, to investigate, like a cat in a strange new house, whiskers twitching and ears pricked with wary inquisitiveness.

"What a shameless little wanton you are, Q."

"Hardly," said Q, absently. He turned round and headed for the kitchen, threading his way through the piles of books with his delicately angular stride. Bond watched him, brooding a little. As it was Saturday and Q had not stopped in at HQ, he was dressed like a university student with nothing more pressing on his mind than the need to ace the next set of exams. His shapeless black knit jumper hung from his bony shoulders and a pair of narrow jeans emphasized the length of his legs. The pale nape of his neck looked boyish and defenseless beneath the clustering waves of dark hair. How was it that no one else at HQ, male or female, had attempted to lay claim to him? Or perhaps they had, and Bond had simply never heard anything about it.

In the kitchen, Q was surveying the dishes Bond had set out on the counter. Bond watched, suppressing a smile, as he uncovered a roast chicken, a salad of baby vegetables, and a crusty loaf of bread with new butter. A bottle of Pinot Noir was nestled in a small bucket of ice next to the plates, forks, and knives.

"Will this do, Quartermaster? We can take it to the dining room, or eat it right here."

"Oh, this is perfectly fine." Q had already located a serviceable knife and had begun to carve the chicken into generous portions. "You have a keypad for shutting off your alarm in here, don't you? As well as the one by the door? I'll install the new parts after we've eaten."

"Excellent," said Bond, and took the plate Q handed to him from the other side of the table.

They ate in silence, broken only once when Q explained M's demand for security upgrades on the Double O residence alarm systems. "It won't take long to implement; I'll do it after dinner. And then I'll need to send a signal to HQ, to make certain it's in good working order. I told the weekend staff to expect one, tonight."

"They can't be _that_ concerned for my safety," Bond said. "Couldn't it wait until next week?"

"Tanner says not. Your Double O colleagues need the same additions. And M has other things for me to see to, next week."

Bond gave a muted snort of exasperation but let the subject drop.

After finishing up with coffee and some pale green grapes, Bond suggested brandy in the sitting room. There, after perhaps fifteen minutes of desultory conversation, during which they sat at opposite ends of the sofa, Bond lowered his head and said calmly, "Q. Does Mallory still regard me as a security risk?"

Q blinked and cleared his throat, but when he responded his voice was just as calm. "I don't know that he ever really thought of you as a security risk. At first, he felt there was a chance you might let classified information slip, but never intentionally and not to the wrong people. I think—as do Tanner and Moneypenny—that he's been reassured on that score; that he knows it's not going to happen."

"Ah," said Bond musingly. He stared into his empty brandy glass for a moment before lowering it to the table. "Then these additions to my home security don't constitute a visual surveillance system."

Q flushed with a combination of indignation and surprise. "Do you think _I_ would be party to something so underhanded, 007? There will be _no_ visual surveillance of you, certainly not inside your flat. And no one has suggested that such a thing might be necessary."

"I wasn't accusing _you_ of anything, Quartermaster," Bond said, raising both hands, palms outward. "And for both our sakes, I'm relieved to know that HQ won't be spying on my private life." Q was still toying with his half-finished brandy, and as it didn't appear that he was ever going to finish it, Bond took the glass from him carefully and set it next to his own.

"Still impatient, I see," Q said with a brief half-smile, but Bond made no reply. He simply rose to his feet and held out a hand to pull Q to his, before turning to lead the way down the hallway to his bedroom, where he switched on the single bedside lamp and waited for Q to come to him. Q, however, stopped in the doorway and gave the room a sweeping glance of approval. Perhaps, Bond mused, because this space was more completely furnished and far less impersonal than the rest of the flat.

"Very nice, 007," Q offered, still looking round, but Bond was in no mood for further conversation. He was already aroused, and in spite of Q's feigned nonchalance, he could sense the young man's need as clearly as if he had put his hand on him to feel the hardness beneath the denim. So he took three steps to where Q was standing, pulled the shapeless black sweater over his head, unzipped his jeans and pulled them down. They bunched round his ankles, and as Q stepped out of them, Bond undressed himself with savage haste before drawing Q to the bed. He knew, by now, what his Quartermaster liked, how he liked to be touched, how his mouth would open in a silent cry as Bond thrust into him. Reaching out with one hand, he pulled the heavy duvet out of the way before pausing to say, rather wryly, "I don't think I'm quite fit enough, today, to wrestle you to the mattress, so if you don't mind…"

He saw Q glance quickly at the bandage on his wrist, the new, shallow scars that curved along his ribs, and heard him whisper, "Oh no, I don't think wrestling is called for."

"Well, that's a relief," replied Bond in a very dry voice and pulled Q into his arms.

Once they were in bed, they moved together carefully and Bond closed his eyes with pleasure as Q's hands stroked him. Who would have thought that this young colleague—technically his superior, as Q had reminded him—would be so delectable when it came to sex? Q was lying above him, and Bond raised his chin to look over Q's shoulder, down the lean, narrow length of his back. Illumination from the street lamps filtered through the curtains and dappled the contours of Q's thin, light-boned body with light and shade. His ivory skin gleamed a dull gold in the dimness. The dip, curve, and shadowed cleft of that truly beautiful arse would, Bond thought vaguely, have sent Michelangelo running for his hammer and chisel.

Any plans he may have had for that arse, however, were shunted aside when Q took him by both shoulders as he began to sit up, in preparation for rolling on top.

"Let me," Q half-whispered, pushing at his shoulders, and Bond looked at him with a touch of surprise but obligingly lay back down again.

"If that's what you want, Q," he murmured, still obliging, and Q raised his head, shaking back his curls, and looked him straight in the eye.

"Bond…it won't be your first time, will it? I—"

"No, it won't," Bond interrupted flatly, trying to remember exactly how long it _had_ been. As vast as his sexual experience was, he didn't think he had bottomed for anybody more than once or twice in the past, and it hadn't been from choice: those men had been marks, it had been _necessary_. With Q, of course, it would be different. "And I have no objection, if that's what you're asking."

He sensed rather than saw Q devising some sort of reply, so he put an end to any further discussion by burying his fingers in the silky mess of his hair and pulling him down to kiss. In a little while Q groped for the jeans that were lying on the floor by the bed, and it transpired that he had everything necessary in one of the pockets. Bond lay still, hands gripping the bedstead behind his head, while Q prepared him slowly, using first one slicked finger, then two, and finally three. He was thorough and considerate; there was scarcely any pain except for first entry, when Bond hissed only briefly as Q drew the fingers out and pushed himself in.

Q eased forward, gradually, until he was fully hilted, and then raised himself up on his elbows. "Bond, are you…?"

"Get on with it, Quartermaster," Bond muttered, but he was smiling just a little, and his own erection strained upward towards Q's stomach. His body was accustoming itself to the pressure, and he could feel his own excitement mounting as Q began to move. He could barely recall what those two previous experiences of long ago had felt like, but this was good, and then it was better than good, and there was the warm sweetness of Q's panting breath against his shoulder, and then—ah!—the brush of that rigid cock against his prostate. Bond came in a rush, almost unexpectedly, and within seconds felt the heat of Q's own climax deep inside.

A half hour later, he lay quietly, not to wake the young man sprawled in the abandon of blissful slumber beside him, mentally tallying up the physical sensations of the aftermath. There was the oddly satisfying soreness between his legs. The strange enjoyment in allowing another person control, something he rarely did in either his professional or personal life. Q mumbled and shifted against him, and Bond pulled the bedclothes up over both of them before closing his eyes and falling almost instantly into a deep and dreamless sleep.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Mind you," Q said over breakfast, "I don't think for a minute that you'll ever really let me gain the upper hand with you, 007. In any respect."

"Hmm," Bond replied. "Very funny." He was sitting gingerly on the edge of a stool by the kitchen counter, contemplating the fragrant steam rising from his coffee mug. "But you're quite right, of course."

"I thought so," muttered Q resignedly, but Bond could see that he was fighting the urge to grin.

"More coffee?" said Bond with deceptive mildness, and noted the speculative look that appeared, suddenly, in his companion's hazel green eyes. "You look as though you could use it."

Q held out his mug to be refilled, and then yawned hugely, putting one hand into his mop of dark hair and pushing stray locks back from his brow. "I suppose I'm becoming accustomed to your resistance to authority…anybody's authority."

"Since when have I ever resisted your authority, Q?"

"M—our previous one—warned me about you," Q said, and Bond raised an eyebrow.

"She said I should never assume that you'll do as instructed, on assignment," Q went on, yawning for a second time, and Bond took an energizing swallow from his own mug. There sat his Quartermaster, clad only in a pair of jeans, unshaven and disheveled, looking more like a tumbled youth from the steamy realms of fanfiction or fanart than the head of a section at MI6. The notion of resisting somebody's authority—deliberately and with forethought—had never seemed so irresistible.

It wasn't until after breakfast, when they retired—again—to the bedroom and Bond was back on top and having a glorious time of it, that Q suddenly gasped out, "Oh! Blast!"

"Mmmm?" said Bond, at least making an attempt to listen. He could feel the delicious buildup of tension before the release, and really, what on earth could Q be peeved about at a moment like this?

"It's…it's…" said Q, a little incoherently, words spilling from him to the rhythm of Bond's pounding. "The…bloody….the…security…system…I forgot!"

"We'll see to it after," said Bond hoarsely, and then he pressed his open mouth against the smooth skin where Q's neck met his shoulder, and squeezed his eyes shut to savor the mind-shattering rush of sensation.

"It's good to know I'm not the only person at MI6 with memory issues," he added a little later, when his heartbeat had slowed to a normal pace and they were lying side by side, still touching but no longer in each other's arms.

"Oh shut up, 007," mumbled Q, turning so he could drape one arm over Bond's chest. "That was an anomaly for which I hold you entirely responsible."

* * *

* The villain dispatched in the opening scene of "Spectre."

** In "Spectre", Bond's new, post-Skyfall London flat is located in a handsome Victorian townhouse in Stanley Crescent, Notting Hill.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12: Bit by Bit**

No sooner was Bond's wrist sufficiently healed than M sent him out again, this time to Syria.

"Syria!" Moneypenny nearly shrieked when she found out. "He must be mad."

"Mallory or Bond?" asked Tanner, raising his eyes from a set of blueprints on his tablet.

"Both," replied Moneypenny, still fuming. "M could bloody well send out one of the younger agents. Bond's been injured; he's only just recovered, he still has memory loss, and they send him to one of the most dangerous places they can think of? In the midst of a civil war."

"Oh," Tanner said, shrugging. "Bond's been there before. Says it's quite beautiful. The Damascus oasis, ancient ruins, and all that. Anyway…it's hardly the first time he's been _injured_ , and it was nothing at all serious."

Moneypenny huffed with annoyance and turned her back on him. "And how much of the Damascus oasis do you suppose is left, what with urban development and all the fighting?"

"El Ghouta," said a voice behind them, and they turned to see Bond, well turned out as always in a slate-grey suit, lounging in the doorway. "The oasis round Damascus, and yes, it was beautiful. I've been there twice. But Eve's right, the times and recent turmoil have taken their toll."

Moneypenny shot an I-told-you-so look in Tanner's direction.

"The Barada runs through it," Bond went on, strolling up to Moneypenny's desk and helping himself to one of the mints from the little bowl standing on the edge. "My first visit was very brief, as a child, and what I saw of it looked like a paradise, then. Water and green trees; figs, olives, dates and pomegranates, walnuts nearly the size of golf balls."

"It's not like you to wax poetic over scenery, James," Moneypenny said, a little sharply. "Only over an excellent scotch, or a Dom Perignon of remarkable vintage."

Tanner's lips twitched, behind his hand. "M says Q Branch is working on a new electronic translator. Don't speak Arabic, do you?"

"Not well enough to signify," Bond replied, shrugging. "But I'm told my contact there speaks perfect English."

" _Are_ you going to Damascus, James?" Moneypenny persisted. "M hasn't said much about it, yet, to me."

"Aleppo," Bond said abruptly, and appropriated a second mint.

"There's been a lot of fighting round there," Moneypenny said, frowning.

"There has," Bond said noncommittally, and then grimaced. "Although the assignment has nothing much to do with the civil war, or even ISIS. Who gave you these things, Eve? This one tastes like wintergreen gone sour."

"It's tragic," Moneypenny said emphatically, but under her breath. "For the civilians. All the children." Then, in a normal tone of voice, "You'd better get down to Q Branch, then. Your chariot awaits."

"Ah," said Bond with grim satisfaction. "They finally finished the DB10?"

"They did," Tanner said dryly. "But don't think they'd ever let you take _that_ anywhere near Aleppo. There's far too much of the taxpayers' money invested in that one vehicle to even consider it. There may even be a handful of idiots who think you're more expendable than it is."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

As he headed in the direction of "The Bunker", Bond kept his expression impassive, in spite of the twinges of memory that had assailed him during his meeting with M. Until today, he hadn't been able to recall where, and when, he had heard the name Marco Sciarra before. It was only when he took his seat in the chair facing M's desk that he remembered something: a video message, for his eyes only, from the previous M. The difficulty that now presented itself was that he had no idea whether he could find it again.

"Q's in a meeting," Michaels said to him, the moment he stepped through the door of the Q Branch computer lab. "But he asked me to show you the Aston. It's just through here."

In one of the equipment workshops, faced with the gleaming, streamlined Aston Martin and being shown over its latest glories by Michaels, it occurred to him that he could ask the Quartermaster to help him locate the video message, the next time they were together in his flat.

Which would be at the start of the weekend.

As Michaels proudly pointed out every innovation included in the Aston's framework and weapons capability, Bond's mind wandered to the time spent with Q during the past…how long had it been now? Four weeks? Five? In all likelihood, the old Bond, James Bond as he had been before his head injury and memory loss, would never have opened himself up to the extent of allowing another person to get so close to him, especially a colleague, _especially_ in his post-Vesper days. He had been, in general, on guard against the world since childhood, and the loss of his parents. A true hardass if there ever was one. Even though he was aware that the head of Q Branch had stirred an unidentifiable something within him from that prickly moment when they first met, he doubted that he would have pursued the young man, certainly not with such energy, if it hadn't been for that life-altering catastrophe.

He and Q had fallen into a kind of pattern, as far as their meetings went, that seemed to satisfy them both. Unless some business or other kept them occupied, they met on Fridays, well after five o'clock. Dinner was usually at a restaurant, of Bond's choosing; as familiar as Q was with London, this familiarity did not extend to the exclusive, high-end eating places that Bond tended to frequent. After, they repaired to Q's flat or Bond's—more often Q's, although Bond was making an effort to put his own residence into some sort of order. They had never yet spent an entire weekend in each other's company, but when they were together Bond was surprised at the ease they felt with one another, the comfortable, if frequently snarky, quality of their camaraderie.

They were careful to ensure that nobody knew, even if there were a select few who might guess.

"Mallory will have an apoplexy if he finds out about this," Q had said matter-of-factly, one Saturday morning. "So let's take care that he doesn't."

What had begun, at least for Bond, as something _different_ , an experiment with an attractive individual whose company he enjoyed and found stimulating, had begun to turn into something that he had to acknowledge—although grudgingly—went beyond experimentation. He genuinely looked forward to his evenings with Q, knowing more or less what they would be like: conversation, replete with a wealth of sardonic banter, over dinner, brandy or whisky in the sitting room in front of the fireplace, some casual talk about MI6, or more rarely, the latest play on the West End, or a concert or art exhibition one or the other had attended. If duty kept Q late at work and Bond's restaurants of preference were closed, they might indulge in torn off hunks of baguette with wedges of Camembert, small, spicy black olives, and a bottle of good red wine on the sitting room floor. ("A regular picnic," Q said with the mildest hint of sarcasm.) When they were at Q's, Bond might page through one of the books laid out on the coffee table, and lately Q had, at Bond's curious request, even sat down at the piano and played a little. Bach, Chopin, Satie, and once, at Bond's insistence, a spare, at times delicately atonal—perhaps cubist?—but mysteriously captivating piece he had composed himself.

Bond had to admit that it was extremely diverting—this bit by bit discovery of so many unexpected things about his young Quartermaster. His musicality, his fondness for black-and-white photography. An artistic ability that astonished Bond when he found a pencil-on-paper drawing of one of Q's cats, done in the style of Dürer, and another, of himself asleep on Q's sofa.

All this enjoyment was quite apart from the pleasure Bond took in the hours when they were tangled and twisted together in his or Q's sheets, Q's clever, cool fingers curling round the aching heat of his cock, then applying movement and pressure with the most exquisite precision. The strange, singular beauty of his narrow, high-cheekboned face and his thin, thin, boyishly smooth body, the way his normally keen eyes went dark and soft as velvet when Bond brought their mouths together.

As neither of them was emotionally demonstrative, it was not surprising that they never touched or kissed, save during sex or the moments directly preceding sex. Their conversations involved no direct references to their physical connection. Bond sensed that Q was (perhaps in the spirit of self-preservation?) keeping some part of himself aloof from their arrangement, as hot, yielding, and abandoned as he was in bed. He asked no questions about the nature of their…arrangement. If he had any thoughts on the subject, he kept them to himself. And this suited Bond just fine. In fact, it reassured him that if something _unfortunate_ were to happen—his own death on assignment, for example—Q would not suffer irreparable emotional damage.

And his own sentiments regarding Q? Bond stubbornly refused to name, analyze, or even think about them.

It was better that way.

"Of course the buttons for the weaponry can be rearranged," Michaels was saying. "And we _did_ keep the ejector seat, as requested. The boss—Q—thinks the firepower will be sufficient."

"Thank you, Michaels," Bond said blandly, raising his eyes to the anxious face of Q's subordinate. "I'm certain it will be."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

It was true that Q had wondered, more than once, why it was Bond sought him out repeatedly, had begun to turn their Friday evenings into a regular thing when he wasn't on mission and out of the country. It surprised him that Bond hadn't been ringing up any of the women who were, in all likelihood, sweating for his calls.

First and foremost, however, he was concerned with keeping James Bond, 007, from the dangers he inevitably encountered on assignment. He had been briefed on Bond's mission to Syria on Wednesday, and by Thursday had prepared nearly all the tech 007 would be taking with him, with the exception of the translation device, which still needed to be tweaked. He was particularly pleased with his night-vision digital camera, small enough to nestle in the palm of one's hand, and the high-powered grenade that could be devised by removing the low heels from Bond's boots and locking them together.

"Do be careful with the camera," he said to Bond on Friday morning, as he turned over the equipment. "It's the prototype; we haven't had the time to make another."

"I'll do my best to bring it back in one piece," Bond said casually, leaning against Q's workstation. "What a delightful toy. Does it take video as well as stills?"

"It's not a toy, 007," Q replied with glacial calm. "And yes, of course it does."

"And I don't suppose that any progress has been made with repairs to my dinner jacket?"

Q took a deep breath and tried counting to ten. "Yes there has," he said evenly. "It's nearly finished. Your flight's on Tuesday; stop by on Monday, between three and four, and I'll hand it over. Or, if I'm all tied up with something, Vargas can show you the improvements."

"All tied up," said Bond with the faintest of grins.

Q narrowed his eyes but refused to rise to the bait.

In his bedroom a little more than twelve hours later, as he watched Bond unfastening his cufflinks, he thought about the recent violence in and around Aleppo. "I've had a modification made to your wretched dinner jacket. There's a sensor on the back that will signal you if someone's sneaking up behind you. It works in both daylight and darkness."

It was located right between the shoulder blades. Where an assassin might be inclined to aim a gun or a blow from a knife.

Bond raised his head with a half smile. "Thank you, Quartermaster," he said calmly and pushed Q against the wall, catching that wide, narrow-lipped mouth with his own. Q mumbled something incoherent—was it because he was frantic with desire or because he was squashed between the wall and Bond?—and bit him. Not too hard.

"Why you little vixen," said Bond in a hoarse, urgent voice, and managed to launch them both at the bed.

Q gave a faint cackle of laughter, but this was stifled against the hard insistence of Bond's lips, and then Bond's hands smoothed down the length of his back before closing over his hipbones, pulling them together, while his weight pinned Q securely to the mattress.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The Syria mission had nearly everybody in Q Branch biting their fingernails with suspense as they took turns monitoring Bond's progress. Q took a large share of the watches and refrained from biting his.

Bond's targets, two former members of British law enforcement turned highly paid mercenaries, had been selling themselves to the most well-to-do bidders among the various factions fighting in and around Aleppo. They claimed to have sensitive information on domestic counter-intelligence stolen from MI5, and whether or not this was true, MI6 had been told to deal with the matter on behalf of their Security Service brethren.

Bond sent word, via a coded message, that this pair of dunderheads, amoral and greedy as they might be, were terribly rusty when it came to covering their own tracks. He located them in record time, and eliminated them after a rather dramatic battle in one of the old Turkish-style bathhouses that still existed in the more historic parts of the city. It was all done in record time, and the computer lab staff, to whom Bond had become a knight in shining armor ever since his rescue of young Simpson, were pleased to see him stroll into Q Branch a full two days before his estimated date of return.

"Your tech," Bond said in regretful tones as he placed what was left of his equipment on the Quartermaster's work station.

"Oh God," said Q. "Burnt offerings."

"I do apologize," Bond said blandly. "I had no idea I'd be facing flame-throwers as well as guns. I'm afraid neither you nor I could have done anything to save them."

"What on earth could I have done, had I been there?" snapped Q, a little irritably. He had spent a great deal of time on that night-vision camera.

"Nothing at all, and you probably would have been shot," Bond replied. "A lot of good that would have done."

"I can see it now, 007," Q said, scraping hopelessly at the camera's charred surface. "You having to drag me out of harm's way, and me bleeding all over your quality shirt."

"Precisely," said Bond, under his breath. "Must see Mallory now. Care for a drink after dinner tonight, at mine?"

"At yours?" Q said, surprised, because although they occasionally spent time at Bond's, Q's flat was their more usual meeting place. However, that evening, when Q arrived after a long day in the labs and a grilled chop and watery potatoes eaten on the fly in the staff canteen, he found that Bond had more or less finished getting his flat in order—from the sofas and chairs, most upholstered in cream and pale grey, to the etchings and oil paintings on the walls, the vintage Oushak rug in pale grey, cream, and steel blue, the books and tapes on the shelves, and the Chinese vase, glazed a deep, rich turquoise blue, on the mantelpiece.

"When did you have the time to do this?" Q asked, rubbing his temples with fatigue.

"I presume you've eaten something, but aren't averse to a drink," Bond said, ignoring the question completely. "Something celebratory. I have an excellent Veuve Clicquot 2006 on ice."

"Think of everything, don't you," muttered Q, who was still put out about the camera.

"I do my best," said Bond with blithe false modesty. "Remind me that later I'll need your help finding a video message from our previous M."

Q gave him a confused look through his lashes, and then made his way to the kitchen, returning moments later with a large tumbler filled with iced water. "A video message. Right, I'll do _my_ best. And I think the Veuve Clicquot can wait until later, don't you?"

"By all means," said Bond, his voice suddenly silky in the manner Q supposed he used when addressing his female marks. "You ought to be pleased with me," he added, seating himself on the arm of a sofa. "I brought the dinner jacket back with not a scratch on it."

"Miraculous," Q said drily, "considering the state of the rest of your things. The technicians who repaired it the last time will be delighted. They think it's the finest article of clothing they ever had to create—even if the design was done by that Savile Row fellow—and I suppose I agree with them…although I don't know much about such things."

"Clearly," said Bond, pointing with mild disdain at Q's striped sweater.

"It's Missoni," Q replied stiffly. "Although naturally I'm not as brand obsessed as you."*

"Those stripes make you look like a teenager, Q."

Q made a noise of exasperation. "Not everybody can afford Tom Ford suits, and Crockett and Jones shoes. Not to mention, lest we forget, dinner jackets specially manufactured by the Q Branch staff."

Bond was still eyeing Q critically. "Well, I don't know that I like it. Forgive me, but it's not particularly flattering. Take it off at once."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Happy now?" Q mumbled into Bond's shoulder, eyes closed and hair a riot of tangles and spiky wisps.

"Quite happy, thanks," replied Bond, his voice a little rough with drowsy contentment. "Now that we're rid of that absurd striped garment. I think I'll fetch that champagne, if you don't mind."

Q eyed him as he sat up, lowered his legs over the side of the bed, and then stood up, stretching in the dim, rosy light of the lamp. By all the gods, he was beautiful: the near-harshness of his strong features offset by the Mediterranean blue of those eyes, a body that was trim, elastic, and muscled without the bulk and ropey sinews of, say, 008. Where his skin wasn't tanned a deep gold he was almost as pale as marble, and like marble, his flesh had a sleek, magnificent denseness, hard but warm and smooth to the touch save where the scars marked him here and there, like rough spots on a sculpture before the surface was polished.

His own flesh felt satisfied as it hadn't in years, perhaps more than simply satisfied. He was replete with sexual gratification, physical fulfillment. And Bond? He clearly enjoyed, more than enjoyed, their encounters, but whether his feelings went beyond that was anybody's guess.

Q was not, and had never really ever been a romantic. He had told Bond this. But he knew, in his innermost heart, that he was falling in love with the bloody bastard, damn it all to hell. And he didn't like to think about how things would be when Bond lost interest in him and moved on.

It was what Bond did with all of his lovers. He would not be unkind; for all his toughness, his cold exterior, he was not a cruel man. He might even try to let Q down easily, carefully, seeing as they worked together and had a good professional rapport in spite of the sniping and banter. Whenever Q allowed himself to think about this eventuality, he told himself coldly that it would all be for the best. It would be foolish to expect anything more, or any kind of emotional commitment, from 007.

That would be arrant stupidity, Q reflected. He bit his lip, still slightly swollen from Bond's fierce kisses. Sooner or later, Bond would be out of his life, with their only contact in the Q Branch labs and workrooms or M's office.

He heard the sounds of a cork popping and the tinkling of glasses in the kitchen, and, sighing, slid out of bed and pulled on his toweling robe before starting down the hallway.

* * *

*Q wore a fuzzy, striped Missoni sweater in Switzerland, for "Spectre".


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13: Bond, Interrupted**

"I've been wondering," Bond said idly, the tips of his fingers running lightly up and down the delicate rise of Q's ribs. "Whether you'll ever let me call you anything but your title."

They were lying amongst the wrinkled, rumpled sheets of Q's bed, watching the play of their shadows on the white wall opposite. The pale curtains were drawn against the night and the scattered constellations of city lights. This room, with its white walls, ceiling, and bed, and the deep, rich cobalt blues of the Tabriz rug, had become, to Bond's ordinarily cynical mind, a cocoon of peace, relaxation, and pleasure in the unpredictable, violent world that was his usual environment.

Q pulled himself into a sitting position and reached for one of the glasses of scotch sitting on the bedside table. "You know what it stands for, Bond."

"Hmm?" Bond had been judiciously studying the fanlike pattern Q's dark eyelashes made above those high, angled cheekbones. "Obviously it stands for Quartermaster. But it does call other words to mind. Quarrelsome. Quick. Quirky. Quintessential."

"I hope you're not going to say _quaint_ , or _queasy_ , or _queer_ ," Q muttered sarcastically, having taken another mouthful of scotch.

Bond laughed silently until tears came to his eyes, as Q looked on impassively.

"It wasn't _that_ funny, 007."

"And are you ever going to address _me_ as anything other than my number or my surname?"

Movement at the window caught Bond's eye and he automatically reached beneath Q's pillow for the gun that, obviously, wasn't there. But it was only the striped cat, who had leaped onto the sill and was now regarding Bond balefully with its round yellow eyes.

"Little tiger," Bond said with his crooked half grin, and Q smiled.

"Me, or the cat?"

"Both."

"There's nothing particularly tigerish about me, Bond."

"I beg to disagree." Bond recalled how, earlier in the evening, Q's nails had dug into his arms as Bond crouched above him, Q's long, coltish legs over his shoulders. "You're rather fierce, Q; you're nothing like a fluffy little housecat, in any event. Oh, you're quiet and studious on the surface, but underneath…and don't tell me you've never inspired fear amongst your colleagues and compatriots in the field."

Q sniffed audibly and collapsed back onto the pillows. "Pot, kettle, 007."

Bond rolled onto his side and surveyed Q's lower lip that in profile had the look of a natural pout no matter what his mood or frame of mind, the ski-jump line of his nose, and then met the gaze of his hazel green eyes, intent beneath straight, dark brows.

"You wouldn't happen to know, would you," he said in his most seductive baritone whisper, placing the tip of one finger on that lower lip, "what it is M wants to see me about, Monday?"

"That tone of voice won't work with me, and you know it," Q replied calmly, although his eyes softened and his lashes fluttered at the light touch. "But to answer your question, I've no clue. There's been no message from Tanner, who's my usual conduit to the goings-on upstairs."

"I hope he isn't planning to send me out right away," Bond muttered. "I could use a week or two of rest."

"Rest?" said Q doubtfully, opening his eyes wide, but he slid one hand into the short, fair hair on the back of Bond's head and pulled him down. Bond kissed him with a hard intensity, openmouthed, gripping that light, flexible body in his arms almost savagely, but his Quartermaster's unexpectedly gentle response disarmed him. Q's lips were warm and delectably soft; he tasted faintly smoky and peaty from the scotch, and his eyelashes brushed Bond's cheek in a subtle caress.

There was, Bond thought for the moment before Q maneuvered until he was on top, sliding between Bond's knees and taking his cock into his mouth, swallowing him slowly— _oh yes!_ —down to the root, something in what that madman, Raoul Silva, had said.* There was a first time for everything, and perhaps it would do no harm to spend the whole of the weekend in the company of his Quartermaster, for the very first time. It wasn't as if they had to make a habit of it. And it wasn't as though anybody was going to catch them out.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Moneypenny looked very grave when Bond faced her Monday morning.

"M's really pleased with you," she said grimly when Bond opened his mouth to speak. "With your work, that is. He's thinking of sending you on a long-term, undercover mission to America."

"Long-term?"

"Deep cover, if such a thing is possible for somebody as well-known as you in the intelligence community. Three to five months, at the least."

"Oh God," said Bond flatly, and he saw a flicker of sympathy in Moneypenny's eyes as she checked her desktop screen.

"It's a bad one, James," she added, and her mouth drooped suddenly. "I…I don't think…"

"It doesn't matter what either of us thinks," Bond said quietly. "It's what he thinks that matters."

"I don't think it's right," Moneypenny murmured, glancing in the direction of the baize door to M's office. "And Double Os aren't usually employed for the long-term jobs. But he says you're still the best, regardless of your…your handicap."

"When?" Bond asked, still in a flat voice that showed no emotion of any sort.

"In three weeks," she replied, just as dully. "Unless he changes his mind."

"I don't expect he will," Bond said absently, staring out the window at the grey sky and the equally grey River Thames. "It wouldn't be like him."

"No," Moneypenny agreed, lips pressed tightly together. "It wouldn't be."

"I don't suppose you know where, in America, he's sending me?"

"New York, I think, for a start. After that, I'm not sure. As usual, you'll be some sort of high roller; a dealer in gemstones with money to burn and connections to a couple of unsavory regimes."

Bond's upper lip twitched derisively. "Not the sort who jets to San Moritz for a weekend, wears vulgar, diamond-encrusted ties, and partys with the likes of Donald Trump?"

Moneypenny looked, for a moment, as though she were about to laugh. "No, nothing quite that bad. But you'll have a fancy flat, I imagine. And a generous expense account…as long as you keep track of the expenses."

"Of course."

"We'll expect you to bring us all souvenirs, when it's over," Moneypenny said, scowling again.

Bond raised his eyes to her downcast expression and smiled.

"Don't look so grim, Eve," he said quietly "It'll come out all right." Then he reached out and touched her shoulder briefly. "And thank you…for telling me." He pressed one hand to his brow and sighed. "I'm guessing that M will instruct me to attend lavish social events, squire a series of A-list models about town, and act the dissolute risk-taking type with more money than he knows what to do with."

Moneypenny squinted up at him, and for the first time her lips curved in what was clearly an ironic grin.

"Oh, no A-list models for you this time, James," she said, clasping her hands in front of her, on the desk. "M wants a better cover on this assignment. If everything goes through as planned, this time you'll have a wife."

"Oh?" said Bond, wrinkling his brow as he took in her unblinking gaze. "A _what?_ "

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"I suppose you've heard," Tanner said, gazing intently into his mug of tea, "that Mallory's thinking of sending 007 deep cover. Several months—long term."

Q had expected something serious, having known M's Chief of Staff long enough to be familiar with his body language. Tanner had been refusing to meet his eyes for the past five minutes.

"No," he replied, lifting his own eyes from the dregs of his Earl Grey to Tanner's impassive face. "I hadn't. Where?"

"America, at least to begin with," Tanner said, staring hard at his tea. "And then on to northern France. I don't have all the details yet."

" _America_ and _France_? What's the connection?"

Tanner shrugged. "Whatever connection there is involves a stolen nuclear warhead. Or so our friends in Washington tell us."

"Oh," said Q, setting down his mug. "There's been at least one attempt by unknown extortionists to collect money from the U.S. government by claiming to have a nuclear weapon in their possession.** It was proven to be a hoax, of course."

"There's been no extortion attempt so far," Tanner said, shrugging again. "But the boys in Washington say there's at least one British national involved."

"Lovely," snapped Q, his voice heavy with irony. "Well. At least we know, now, that M trusts 007 well enough to send him out of the country for a length of time. Though I'm a bit surprised; I didn't think Double Os were used for long-term undercover. Any word on what Q Branch needs to supply him with?"

"Nothing yet," Tanner murmured, swirling what remained of his tea in the bottom of his mug. "We'll know soon enough. And if Bond had any plans for the next few weeks, he'd better get them out of the way, and quickly." His eyes met Q's briefly, and then slid away.

Bond's plans for the near future? Only two days ago, on Saturday, Q had located the video message left for Bond by the previous M, and had conscientiously left the room when Bond viewed it. "I don't propose to peer into your private affairs, 007," he had said simply, and was rewarded by the look of genuine appreciation Bond cast in his direction. If the late, great M had meant for Bond to undertake a secret mission on her behalf, it seemed that what she'd wanted would have to wait.

And he, Q, would have a long time to wait, as well, before he could see 007 again. He hadn't quite expected something like this to come up, but, after all, the unexpected was par for the course in the world of international espionage.

"They're giving him a wife, as part of his cover," Tanner blurted out, putting his mug down with a thump on the nearest computer table. "Some American operative, I shouldn't wonder. I don't know why they need bother."

"Well," said Q reasonably, hiding his astonishment. "It makes sense, I suppose, if he's to do a lot of socializing. Makes him more credible, somehow. Lone Ranger types are always suspect."

Tanner looked at him with a kind of relief. "Perhaps," he mumbled, patting at his receding hairline with a handkerchief. "God knows, this operation is going to cost us a small fortune. Thank God the Americans will foot the bill for the lady's haute couture."

Q frowned. "Better money spent than a nuclear warhead floating about for ISIL or North Korea or any lunatic dictator to get hold of."

"North Korea's working on its own nuclear weapons," Tanner replied absently, re-appropriating his mug.

"No need to speed up the process, then," Q retorted. It was plain to him that Tanner was glad to have gotten the announcement off his chest. "Now, as we're on the job and can't get drunk, I'd suggest another cup of tea. You've been staring at those dregs for the past ten minutes, and if there's anything we have a great deal of in the bloody supply cabinet, it's packets of tea."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"I always thought you might be a man of many talents, Q," Bond said musingly as he switched on the bedside lamp. "But it hadn't really occurred to me that your outstanding abilities would extend to the bedroom."

"Is that your way of telling me I'm a good fuck, 007?" Q mumbled, adopting an expression of clueless stupidity that was so obviously false that Bond chuckled heartily into the pillow.

Q sighed and shifted a little, shoving the duvet out of the way. He had been lying on his back, spread-eagled like a starfish, to allow his overheated body to absorb the coolness of Bond's fine-woven linen sheets. It had been a quiet evening. They had eaten at a small, clearly upscale Chinese restaurant, at which Bond had ordered an assortment of dishes Q had never heard of: Cantonese-style barbecued chicken, beef with pickled vegetables, and fresh bananas, sliced lengthwise and cooked briefly in a mixture of honey and sesame oil before being dropped into a basin of iced water to give them a brittle candy-like outer coating.*** At Bond's flat they had drunk little and talked even less, although the subject of 007's impending assignment had come up and been shrugged off by both of them as unfortunate but unavoidable. Once this had been gotten out of the way—Q had been wondering how Bond would approach any discussion of the mission—they had gone immediately to bed.

"I wasn't going to put it quite so crudely," Bond said now, raising himself on one elbow. "But yes, you definitely fall into that category. Not too tired for more, are you?"

Bond's steely blue eyes were narrowing dangerously, and the corners of Q's mouth curled upward. It was amazing, truly, the unstoppable sex drive some priapic god had gifted 007 with. He looked as passion-driven and aroused as if Q hadn't ridden his cock to the point of delirium fewer than thirty minutes earlier.

"No, not too tired," he replied quietly, and exhaled with a combination of a sigh and a gasp as Bond's hard hand insinuated itself between his legs and lightly stroked the silky, sensitive skin of his inner thigh, between knee and groin.

However, when they came to later, after an hour of sleep, Bond surprised Q by returning to the subject of the long-term mission to America and France, and the likelihood that his stay in New York would be for at least half of the three months M was assuming the job would require.

"Eve's told me the arrangements for your flat are being concluded, and your bank accounts set up, along with a lengthy fake history for your 'savings' and 'investments'," Q responded. "Your business cards and passport and the like will be ready next week. Q Branch is preparing some very handsome, _non-exploding_ silver-gilt pens for you to give to select acquaintances—that is, suspects—as gifts; they'll contain trackers, naturally."

"Naturally," Bond replied wryly. He gave Q a brief, sideways look. "And I trust this spouse they're supplying me with will be a help, not a hindrance."

"There's no reason at all she should be a hindrance," Q drawled. "If she's as well trained as they say. And if you think that I'm in any way _jealous_ , you're quite mistaken. I've never given your liaisons with your marks a second thought. This person won't be a mark, but she'll be a part of the job, and the same thing holds for her."

"I rather hope," said Bond with a half-smile, staring at the ceiling, "that you don't think it will have any affect on…" For a moment he appeared to be searching for a word, before patting the mattress between them and saying simply, " _this_. And there's no reason to take it for granted that I'll be sleeping with her."

"I never expected anything from _this_ in the way of…longevity," Q retorted after a moment. "I've asked nothing of you, and assumed nothing. You are under no obligation to me, and we both know it. What you do in private, on the job or off it, is none of my affair."

"You appear to be jumping to conclusions ahead of time, Quartermaster."

Q shrugged. "Hardly. But nobody, least of all myself, expects that you'll be celibate for the duration of the assignment."

"You don't trust me, do you Q." Bond's tone of voice was amiable, but it was a statement more than a question, and Q rolled his eyes before turning his head on the pillow to meet Bond's gaze.

"I'd be mad to trust you completely, don't you think?" he said finally, his voice as crisp as it was when presenting Bond with his tech, in the midst of a Q Branch lab. "I know about you; everybody does. None of your…your intimate arrangements lasts for very long. I've always known that, and I'm not being critical. I'm not making any moral judgements; it's simply the way you operate."

"Those were all work-related."

"Isn't this work related?"

"Good God, Q, is that what you think?" Bond was smiling slightly, but his eyes were somber. "That I've actually got some ulterior motive, with you?"

"Don't you always have some ulterior motive?" Q muttered somewhat stiffly, although he too was smiling.

Bond raised an eyebrow and then sighed, rolling over onto his back. "Serves me right, I suppose, if you feel that way. Well, what about you, my little boffin? What's _your_ ulterior motivation?"

Q gave him a wide-eyed look of innocence. "I have none, Bond. And this…" He gestured vaguely at the broad expanse of Bond's bed. "This was your idea, not mine. Not that I'm complaining. It's been rather remarkable. So…is this conversation your prelude to saying you're finished with me?"

"Q."

"Because if that's the case, I quite understand."

"Oh, do you?" said Bond sharply, and he rolled back over, neatly pinning Q to the mattress. "Don't put words in my mouth, if you please, my lovely Quartermaster. And no, I'm not bloody well finished with you, as you put it."

Q stared up at him without speaking, but Bond must have felt some of the stiffness leaving his body, because he suddenly grinned, a little ironically as was his wont.

"In fact, I quite like you like this. I think you could say it's becoming an addiction."

"Hmmph," snorted Q, breaking their gaze and turning his head to the side so that Bond wouldn't see that he was fighting to keep from grinning in return. "An _addiction_."

"Yes, rather," said Bond conversationally. "I shall miss you, you know, while I'm away."

Q sighed and rolled his eyes once again. "Don't play games with me, Bond. It's beneath you. Of course if you need to get in touch with me…with any of the Q Branch staff…you can reach us at any time on the comm link. If you need assistance from this end…for the mission, you know."

"Of course I know," Bond said, stretching, for all the world, thought Q, like a great cat. "And I'll be needing assistance, if what Eve tells me is true."

Q coughed. "Tanner says it's a bad one."

"Yes, so does she."

"I…" Q began, and then he closed his lips on whatever he had been about to say. His gamin features suddenly looked pinched, his narrow face more drawn, and his eyes had gone very dark beneath half-lowered lashes. "I realize you're one of the most insanely overconfident people I've ever met, but I hope you won't take too many risks. After all, you're…"

"Not getting any younger, yes I've made note of that," Bond murmured, sounding amused, but at the look on Q's face his voice changed. "It'll be fine, I promise. And I'll be back sooner than you expect, you know. Mallory's in the habit of underestimating me."

There was an echoing flicker of amusement in Q's eyes before he lowered them again. "Oh, I don't doubt it," he replied coolly. "You will—if only to plague me and the rest of Q Branch even further."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Mallory was called away to a last-minute meeting," Moneypenny said to Q as he stepped into her office space in M's anteroom. "But you can leave those charts with me."

Q laid the small pile of papers on top of her desk. "Busy today, I see." Most of the desk was covered with file folders and stacks of printed out e-tickets; there were bills of foreign currency, and two electronic translators Q Branch had sent up earlier. Moneypenny herself was looking slightly harried; her curls were mussed where she had run her fingers through them, and a piece of transparent mending tape was stuck to her sleeve. Q reached out and removed it.

"Two agents going abroad—it's also last-minute," she said, grimacing.

"M's meeting with both when he gets back," Tanner grumbled from the doorway to the inner sanctum. "And after that, with 007."

"His identification papers are ready to go," Q said, displaying an image on his tablet. "We've given him gilt-edged business cards, but they're not too ostentatious. And the pen trackers are complete. I've been told the Americans will give him a car in New York, and that we're to send the Aston to Paris. His accommodations are all in order, I imagine?"

"Naturally," said Moneypenny in a wry voice. "A posh flat on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where a lot of the Old Money lives. And he's getting a generous expense account. His cover will be _very_ convincing. Oh—per Mallory's instructions, I've just finished making arrangements for his, um, American 'wife'."

"Ah yes," Tanner said critically. "The missus. Who's the lucky girl? CIA, I suppose, since this is an international issue. Do we know her?"

" _You_ don't, I don't think," Moneypenny responded briskly. "But I do. She started off as FBI, moved to CIA because of her facility with languages. I actually did meet her a few years ago, when she was in training at Quantico. We've kept in touch. Highly intelligent, a weapons and martial arts expert, nerves of steel. When Mallory was mulling over our various choices I recommended her specifically. And for once, he listened to me."

"I expect she looks the part," Q said nonchalantly. "The ideal trophy wife."

"Oh yes," Moneypenny said blithely. "You know the type. Stylish, model-slim but athletic. Very beautiful. Blonde…or at least she was the last time I saw her."

"Right," murmured Q. "Perfect. Just Bond's type. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll see to making arrangements for the Aston to be dropped off in Paris."

He headed towards the door, fiddling with his tablet so as not to have to meet Tanner's eyes and the compassion he was afraid he might see there.

"I'll go with you," Moneypenny volunteered, her voice so cheerful that Q was seized with the sudden, schoolboy urge to shake her.

They made their way down to The Bunker in silence, until they reached the entrance to the workroom where technicians were still bustling round the Aston DB10.

"I don't know that we'll need a second comm hookup," Q said with a businesslike crispness. "For 007's, er, wife. The Americans can see to that. What's her name, by the way?"

"Calpurnia Baker," Moneypenny replied. "You'll approve of her; she's very professional. As for Bond, he should be grateful to me for convincing M to select her; they'll get on swimmingly, I think."

"No doubt," Q said drily, holding the door for her. "Especially if she's as spectacular as you say."

"Oh, she is that," Moneypenny said, smiling. "And _you_ should be grateful to me as well."

"Really," muttered Q with resigned exasperation. "And may I ask why?"

"Oh," said Moneypenny. "Did I forget to mention? She's a gorgeous creature, but since she's taking on the role of Bond's other half, it's fortunate that almost nobody knows she's a lesbian. Be a dear, Q, and let me borrow one of your electronic clipboards. Mine's dead; I hate how we're always needing to recharge the bloody things."

* * *

* "[There's] a first time for everything." Spoken by Raoul Silva on his island base, in that ambiguously flirtatious scene with a captive Bond, in "Skyfall."

** In 1974, an individual whose identify was never uncovered claimed to have a nuclear device hidden in the Boston area. The ransom demanded was $200,000 (worth a lot more in those days). No device was found, the extortionist was never located, and the threat was labeled a hoax.

***Very delicious; recipes can be found online.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14: AWOL**

"I have that tie pin audio recording device for Barton, that is, 005," Q said to Moneypenny at ten past nine, one grey and rainy Monday morning. It seemed likely, to him, that she had gotten as little sleep as he had the previous night; they were both bleary eyed and clutching mugs of black coffee for dear life. "But he still hasn't come in to collect it."

"I wouldn't say he's forgetful, exactly," replied Moneypenny, absently threading a green ribbon through her dark brown curls. "But the way he prioritizes things is distinctly lax."

"I suppose you could say the same about 007," said Q, who found 005 a likeable sort. "Not to mention a few of the other field agents."

"At least, when 007 neglects to pay Mallory a visit, we know it's a matter of choice on his part," Moneypenny retorted, un-threading the ribbon again, and Q gave a reluctant half-grin.

It had been nearly three weeks since 007's departure for America and New York, and what little information they could glean about him trickled in, for the most part, through Bond's rare communications with Q Branch, via his comm link, and his even rarer encoded messages to Moneypenny through his mobile. It seemed he had settled into his duplex flat on Fifth Avenue with no difficulty, and that he was putting in appearances at every lavish social or cultural event the city had to offer.

At these events he had also made himself known—in his false identity, of course—to the few British individuals the CIA suspected of involvement in the matter of the nuclear warhead.

"Risky," Moneypenny said now, as she had said several times before, and Q could only agree. He had, of his own accord and without saying anything to Mallory, made up several additional dinner jackets and one sports jacket, all well-armored beneath their beautiful tailoring, and an elegant, gold-plated cigarette lighter that fired miniscule sleeping darts. These items had been sent off to 007 only a day earlier.

"He did get his photo in the society pages," she added, yawning, and brought the image up on her monitor. The screen went very bright, and they blinked at the glossy picture of Bond and his beautifully dressed "wife" on the outdoor balcony of the Metropolitan Opera. Both were holding glasses of champagne and smiling at the camera.

"She's lovely," said Q noncommittally, thinking of Bond's last visit to him, two days before his flight to New York. They had gone over Bond's itinerary—they weren't certain, yet, when he would be deployed from America to France—and eaten a meal prepared by Q. Both had been tired, but not too tired to retire to the bedroom for what was bound to be their last evening spent together in a long while. Although their dinner conversation consisted of analysis of Bond's game plan, and Q's instructions regarding the pen trackers, Bond's newly revamped Walther, and a new encryption device, Q had found himself unbuttoning his own shirt before they had even finished wiping the last traces of _bouef en daube_ from their plates with pieces of French bread.

"Why the hurry"?" Bond had murmured with his crooked grin as he watched his Quartermaster fling himself into bed.

"Oh do shut up, 007," was Q's terse reply as Bond proceeded to discard his clothing in the middle of the floor.

That night was now one of Q's nicest memories of time spent with Bond because, in spite of his own initial haste, they had taken their time and made everything last. As cliché as it sounded, he had only to close his eyes to remember the way Bond took his face between his hard, calloused hands, the brush of Bond's mouth over his cheekbones and his eyelids, the weight of Bond's body on his, his hot breath against Q's ear, and the way he smiled, eyes closed, when Q reversed their positions and rolled on top. Even the mental image of Bond, rumpled-haired and slightly red-eyed but still impressive in his nakedness, collecting his clothes from the carpet the following morning, was, to use what Q considered an absurdly old fashioned word, somewhat _endearing_.

There had even been an undeniably comic moment when one of Q's pillows, ruptured by their energetic tussling of the night before, erupted down and feathers all over the bedroom like a miniscule explosive device, causing them both to sneeze continuously for several minutes.

"Mallory does have some questions for you," Moneypenny said, breaking into Q's memory replay in a rather gloomy voice. "Once you've reviewed the budgets. And I daresay he _will_ ask you about those unexplained payments to that tailor in Mayfair."

It would seem that M, sharp-eyed and detail obsessed as he was, had caught up to Q with regards to his surreptitious commissioning of those additional protective garments for 007.

"He'll also want to discuss that injectable 'smart blood' thing you're working on," continued Moneypenny, reaching for her coffee mug. "Once it's confirmed safe, he's thinking of ordering its use for most of the Double Os, 007 in particular."

" _Why_ am I not surprised?" murmured Q, raising his eyebrows.

"I did receive a message from Bond yesterday," Moneypenny went on, looking faintly puzzled. "Said he's sending an encrypted report today, and that his cover continues to be solid. Also mentioned,"—and she gave Q a puzzled look—"that I should tell the Quartermaster the pen trackers work well, but that he should kindly get rid of the feathers. What do you suppose he means?"

"I haven't the slightest idea, Eve," Q replied briskly, struggling to keep a straight face. "No doubt it's his idea of a joke."

"Well, he can hardly accuse _you_ of being featherbrained, of all people."

"I quite agree," Q said serenely. "You can tell him I find his sense of humor highly mystifying."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Next month Bond should be off to France," Tanner commented a day later as he and Q went over the final specs for 009's new car, a Jaguar Coupe. The arsenal of defensive weaponry was every bit as impressive as the one Q's technicians had put together for 007's Aston.

"Paris," Q replied levelly, looking up from the blueprints on his tablet. "For a few days, according to his latest communication with Q Branch. To await his contact. Someone's going to tell him where to go to examine the warhead. What little information we've been able to collect tells us it's concealed somewhere in northern France."

"Tricky assignment, this," Tanner said darkly, and looking at him, Q could tell that he was worried. Which made sense; Tanner and Bond had known each other since Bond's early days in the service, and they had a respectful but definitely friendly rapport. "I can't argue that Bond isn't perfect for the job, but I'm surprised M didn't give the mission to 003, after all."

003 was highly thought of by everybody at MI6, and five years younger than Bond, into the bargain.

"Rumor has it 003's got a fiancé," Q said. "You've always told me the most hazardous assignments are commonly parceled out to agents with no dependents."

"If he marries, it's quite possible he'll be moved out of the Double O section," Tanner added glumly. "We'll be short-staffed. Have you heard Mallory's thinking of getting 007 to train likely field agents for Double O status?"

"The last thing in the world he'd want to do," Q said with a hint of a smile. "I don't know that he'd have the patience, for one."

Tanner grinned and then broke into one of his rare laughs. "Can you see Bond standing in front of a classroom full of young recruits?" He coughed and reorganized his features into something resembling gravity. "Or putting them through their paces on the training field?"

"No I can't," replied Q with a polite attempt to imitate Tanner's amusement. "Still, I suppose it's better than being put out to pasture…not that M has any notion of retiring him in the near future."

"God, no," Tanner said flatly, and they both fell silent. It was plain to Q that Tanner was thinking along the same lines as himself: nobody could imagine Bond in retirement, or as an instructor of junior agents. Nearly everybody at MI6 was of the opinion that 007 would meet his end in the line of duty and never be faced with the ignominy of desk-bound old age, or having to watch as young operatives surpassed him in the field. He might drink too much, philander too much—at least, he had in the past—take too many risks, go off-script at will, and pay little, if any, attention to the reprimands of his superiors, but he was still unmatched in the field in the eyes of everybody in upper management who mattered. M had once voiced the opinion that 007 was determined to go out in a blaze of glory before he reached old age, and this statement had been repeated to Tanner and Q by a disapproving Moneypenny.

"I really _hate_ it when people say things like that," she had said, twisting her fingers together with annoyance. " _I_ think James enjoys life far too much to give it up so easily."

Tanner's eyebrows came together at this indignant pronouncement. "Yes, perhaps, some aspects of life anyway. But when he's not on assignment, _I_ think he gets terribly bored." Then he caught Q's eye and said, hastily, "At least, that _used_ to be the case."

Q had turned to inspect the fog gathering outside the window to hide the color he felt must be staining his cheekbones. He was fairly certain that Tanner knew, or at least guessed, about himself and Bond—in spite of the care they had taken to hide their extracurricular activities. "Oh, 007's an inveterate adrenaline junkie; everybody knows it, and I don't suppose that will ever change."

That three-way conversation had been only a few days earlier, and although nothing more had been said, Q felt that both Moneypenny and Tanner were inclined to take umbrage with M's pronouncement. No matter how the higher-ups might view Bond's reckless tendencies, Q couldn't imagine having to think of Bond in the past tense, and he was certain his two colleagues felt the same way, although for different reasons.

"According to our American friends," Tanner was saying now, "a ransom message has finally been delivered, electronically, to the government Chiefs of Staff. Six hundred million American dollars worth of gold and silver. Easy to melt down and transport, almost impossible to trace. There's a two-month deadline for turning it over. But no clues, as yet, to the identity of the extortionists."

"I'm surprised they didn't ask for more," was all Q could manage in reply. "That is, they auction off paintings at Christie's and Sotheby's for more than one hundred million. Are the CIA people really sure British citizens are involved?"

"Apparently," replied Tanner, glowering at the Jaguar specs as if they were to blame.

"Gentlemen," said Moneypenny, entering the room with the unmistakable sharp tapping of her stylish heels. "M's convening a meeting of the four of us, plus your young Mr Michaels, Q, in the small conference room fifteen minutes from now. It seems he wants to discuss 007's progress in New York."

 _"Why?"_ Q hissed under his breath as Tanner straightened the lapels of his jacket and then searched the folder-covered surface of Moneypenny's desk for his own tablet. "What does he know that we don't?"

"I haven't any idea," Tanner muttered in response. "Perhaps he's had word from the Americans. Whatever the case, we'd better get a move on, sharpish. Could you summon Michaels, please? You know what M's like if anybody's late."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

As it happened, Mallory _had_ received word from the Americans—from the handler of Bond's American "wife", to be precise. Bond—who was using the alias "John Corbin"—had made contact with two individuals, both of British origin but with lengthy careers in Silicon Valley. They appeared to be working for whatever criminal organization had the nuclear warhead in its possession, and were interested in using "Mr Corbin" as a go-between with interested buyers. Corbin, it seemed, had been spreading the word that his underworld contacts, and friendly relations with various military dictators, were reliable, not to mention his own remarkable success with money laundering.

His claims, not surprisingly, had been met with a degree of cautious disbelief, and in order to allay these doubts, the CIA was asking M's office to concoct a tape of "Corbin" meeting with an assortment of unsavory criminal characters. This, Mallory said, looking pointedly in Q's direction, would require some very careful, undetectable editing of surveillance footage, with Bond's figure somehow inserted therein.

"We can do it, sir," Q responded with cool confidence, and watched as the creases in Mallory's brow smoothed out a little. "It may take a few days, but it's doable. And the editing and additions won't be detectable. I'd like to have Michaels' help on this, if I may. He's been heading up Q Branch's surveillance team, but we can move staff round a bit."

M inclined his head and glanced at his notes, but Q could see that he was relieved. "I can trust you to come up with something satisfactory, Quartermaster," he said at the conclusion of the meeting, and Q sighed inwardly at the prospect of overtime. "I know your division is a bit overworked these days, but if you name Mr Michaels your second in command, we'll issue him a higher clearance level. Miss Moneypenny, get back to the Americans and tell them we'll have something by the end of the week."

"I'm pulling you off programming and surveillance, and putting you in charge of overseeing this project," Q said quietly to Michaels, who was beaming at him. It was Michaels' first time in M's office, the first time he had been included in such a high level meeting with the head of MI6. Q remembered his own beginnings in the field of espionage and was touched. "You can turn what you've been working on over to Vargas; she's more than capable."

"She'll be thrilled, sir," Michaels replied under his breath as they all rose to their feet in response to M's nod of dismissal.

"Back to the salt mines," Q murmured to Moneypenny as he left the quiet ambiance of M's anteroom for the keyboard clatter and bright lights of his realm in The Bunker, a palpably ecstatic Michaels in tow.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Ever since Bond had taken up residence in New York, Q's subordinates had been closely following the activities of two moderately shady individuals—both expat Brits in the aeronautics industry—to whom Bond eventually presented those handsome silver-gilt pens with their carefully inlaid trackers, making Q Branch's job much easier.

"Nothing definite yet, on the part of our suspects," Q said when Tanner asked for a report. "It could be either of them…or somebody completely different."

"Where are they now?"

"Number one hasn't left New York. Number two went to Paris, from there west to the coast, and is now returning to New York."

"So there is something to the French connection." Tanner accepted the thumb drive Q handed to him and plugged it into his tablet. "If, in fact, number two is the guilty party."

"If," said Q, rubbing at his eyes, which were reddened from hours of staring at his tracker monitor.

"Is that the faked video, for Bond?" Tanner had turned to inspect another of Q's monitors, on which preliminary editing of the falsified Bond footage could be seen. "Well. That seems to be coming along nicely. It isn't as though we don't have enough images of 007. The place seems strange without him, doesn't it? At least, that's what Eve said this morning. That she misses him, as do nearly all the ladies at HQ."

Q gave a casual shrug of his thin shoulders, but pretended not to notice the keen look Tanner sent in his direction.

"Before we know it he'll be back, more smug than ever and eager to plague my staff and yours," he said, shrugging again, and then changing the subject back to the contents of the faked film footage. He and Michaels had put in a lot of work, and to anybody outside of Q Branch who happened to look at it, it would appear that Bond—that is, Corbin—had participated in meetings with a high-ranking North Korean general, members of both ISIL and the Taliban, and an extremist who had come up through the ranks of the former KGB, now an influential figure among certain fringe groups in Eastern Europe. Tanner watched the entire thing with an approving eye, and, to Q's relief, did not resume his monologue on how much nearly all the female, and no doubt some of the male staff of MI6 were looking forward to the reappearance of their legendary field agent.

And just how much was _he_ himself missing Bond? Q had heard from him perhaps twice weekly via the comm link, each time very briefly. There were no conversations to speak of, simply abrupt and clinical deliveries of information from 007, and Q's equally crisp and professional replies. It was Friday nights that were beginning to be difficult—at least Q, who had never much minded his general solitude in the past, now found himself feeling at loose ends and emotionally sensitized. Yes, he supposed, he _did_ miss Bond, his companionship even more, perhaps, than the sex. It had taken his absence to hammer home how much Q enjoyed their caustic banter, their sarcastic, backhanded compliments, the way Bond rolled his eyes over their age difference, their congenial silences. These days, when he let himself into his flat on Friday evenings, he had the comfort of his well-organized and visually soothing living space, various projects to keep him occupied, his music, and his cats for company, but three weeks and five days after Bond's move to New York he had found himself sitting at his dining room table, trying to draw a pencil sketch of Bond's face from memory as the cats sat pointedly in front of their not-yet-replenished food dishes, eyeing him with an indignation that finally gave way to loud feline verbalization. Later, having tended to the cats and tried, in vain, to read the latest article on advances in artificial intelligence, he had flopped onto the piano bench and attempted to relieve his sense of frustration by pounding out a brief, stormy piece that seemed to echo his restless state of mind: Chopin's Revolutionary Etude.

Bond would probably laugh if he could have seen him.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Two days later, Q and Michaels reviewed the completed visuals they had compiled and then stored to a memory stick, with a single copy to be kept in Q Branch as backup.

"See to it that Bond has it by the weekend," M had said abruptly during their most recent meeting. In other words, somebody from Q Branch, as likely as not, would have to courier it to New York. Nobody, from M on down, was willing to entrust such a thing to an express mail or freight service.

"Vargas can fly over, first thing tomorrow," he told Michaels. "I spoke to her, and she's perfectly willing."

Michaels cleared his throat diffidently. "Are you certain _you_ wouldn't rather go, sir?"

"Good lord," Q said, frowning. "As if I could take the time to skip off to the States. Just look at our work schedule. In any event, you know I hate to fly."

"Of course, sir," Michaels murmured apologetically. "I simply thought…well, a weekend in New York might make for a nice holiday…you know, a break from all of this." He gestured vaguely at the computer lab and his colleagues, all of whom were clattering away on their keyboards.

"Thanks for the thought," Q replied, rolling his eyes. "But I think not," and Michaels retreated to his own monitor, looking relieved. Q remembering that the last time he had been forced to used air travel had been for his meeting with Bond at the British Embassy in Paris, made an effort to forget how uncomfortable that very brief flight had been, with the added nuisance of those ridiculous black velvet garments. Well, Vargas would enjoy a visit to New York. Once her mission had been accomplished, he would allow her a day in which to enjoy the sights and play tourist.

It was nearly a quarter of five, and Q had just finished mediating a dispute of sorts between Vargas and Arbogast over a code-breaking program that had gone awry, when an encrypted message, in the code assigned to Bond, appeared on his mobile phone. Moments later, he was staring at the single sentence in blank astonishment.

"Meet me at seven tomorrow at the Savoy."

"At the….?" Q muttered to himself in abject astonishment, before texting back, "WHERE?"

"I'm going AWOL for thirty-six hours. Don't tell anyone."

Q hesitated for a moment before texting back. "Don't tell anyone? How can I be certain you are who you say you are?"

"How are Mrs Meadowlark and the cats?"

Q's lips twitched before he tapped out, "You're coming here on the sly and you want to meet in the Savoy?"

"?"

"You must be mad," Q tapped on his keyboard screen. "You sneak away and hide out in one of the most expensive, well-known hotels in London?"

"Nobody will know. But if they were looking for me, they wouldn't expect me to hide in plain sight."

Well, that sounded like Bond.

"I'll meet you in the lobby then."

"No, I'll be in the bar."

That made sense. Less public, less brightly-lit.

"Which one?" Q texted, gritting his teeth and almost wishing that he could add emojis for exasperation.

"The darkest," was the reply, before the screen went blank.

"Is something wrong, sir?" Vargas asked, and Q raised his head to find her standing by his work station with—as usual—his steaming Scrabble mug. It was then that he realized he had been scowling mightily at his mobile.

"No there isn't, thank you, Miss Vargas," he replied, reaching for the mug. "A touch of cramp, maybe?" He rotated his shoulders experimentally; and really, he _was_ feeling uncomfortable from having been hunched over his computer terminal for the past three hours. Moneypenny, had she been there, would probably have told him, in one of her intermittent attempts at motherliness, to stop slouching and sit up straight. "Incidentally, you needn't worry about flying to New York tomorrow. Something else has come up and the assignment will be dealt with, without us having to bother with it."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Having made his way through a still bustling Covent Garden district, Q entered the Savoy as unobtrusively as he was able, in the train of a large family of tourists. After wandering from eating place to eating place—he was not particularly familiar with the hotel's interior; it was hardly the sort of place he chose to frequent—he eventually located what seemed to be the darkest of the Savoy's bars, the Beaufort, and made his way into the art deco-esque space. Surveying the room without being too obvious about it, he finally spotted Bond, drink in hand, seated at one of the circular, black-topped tables. Q lowered his eyes and adopted an impersonal social smile, but he had noticed that Bond looked relaxed and remarkably well; his hair was somewhat longer, though impeccably cut, and his undoubtedly expensive shirt, open at the neck, was the same cool, Mediterranean blue as his eyes.

"Mr Corbin, I presume," Q said cordially, taking the seat opposite.

Bond looked him straight in the eye and smiled.

"You presume correctly," he replied in a similarly cordial tone. "I believe you have something for me. Care for a drink?"

"I do indeed," Q responded, taking a deep breath, annoyed that the sight of 007 had caused his stomach to turn somersaults and his pulse to quicken. "As for the drink, thank you, but I think I'll wait until after our business has been concluded."

"Very well," Bond said amiably, placing his now empty glass on the table. "I'm flying back to New York tomorrow, but I've taken a room for the night. Perhaps you'd be so kind, if you've brought your laptop, to show me the contents of your present in private."

"Certainly," Q replied a little stiffly, and stood up. If he was reading Bond's expression correctly, the insufferable bastard was taking certain things for granted. As usual.

"I believe I have an hour to spare," he said clearly, with a deliberate glance at his watch. "I've another appointment at nine."

Which was a lie, but he was damned if he was going to let 007 think that the Quartermaster of MI6 was at his _total beck and call_.

Bond smiled again as he rose to his feet and gave him a look of genial disbelief.

"Cancel it, then," he said calmly, and led the way out of the bar in the direction of the bank of lifts, with the Quartermaster of MI6 trailing, rather tight lipped, behind him.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15: Sand and Tide**

A month in New York had been something of a mixed blessing for Bond. He liked the city and knew it fairly well—its historic monuments, its concert halls, museums, galleries, and parks, its crowded theatre district—and was pleased to renew his acquaintance with some of its excellent restaurants. The assignment had kept him busy; stalking the men MI6 suspected of being involved with the extortionists had not been easy. After engineering a series of encounters with both at social events in and around the city, he had invited both to a cocktail party in his penthouse at the top of one of those massive, pre-war piles on Park Avenue, within walking distance of the Guggenheim and Metropolitan museums.

It had been a relief to find that he got on well with the CIA agent posing as Mrs Corbin, the unquestionably tough-as-nails Calpurnia Baker. He had been impressed by her keen knowledge of the various shadow governments, political factions, and organized crime syndicates that operated overseas, and by her remarkable facility with any number of weapons, from firearms to throwing knives. Her good looks—she was willowy and blonde—were equally impressive, and it was almost with relief that he was informed, by Ms Baker herself, that she was a lesbian. Not that he would have attempted any form of sexual engagement with her, for all that his male libido had automatically stood up and taken notice of her beauty. His tragic connection with Vesper Lynd had killed any serious inclination to romance a fellow operative assigned to the same mission as himself. Most significantly, there was Q, back at MI6, with his keen, beautiful eyes, clever hands, deliciously yielding mouth, and sharp, stimulating mind. Q, not exactly a fellow operative but certainly a colleague, with whom he hoped to resume their… _thing_ , once he returned to England. Although the Quartermaster was in no way possessive, and had made it clear that Bond was under no obligation to him, Bond _hoped_ he would have no objection to a resumption…

So, when they weren't reviewing material related to their assignment, the evenings with Calpurnia Baker in their Park Avenue penthouse were spent in conversations about her training at Quantico and his years in the Navy, the advantages of a Walther 9 mm over a Baretta compact or a Glock 19, and their mutual acquaintance Eve Moneypenny, for whom Calpurnia had a great deal of respect.

"I thought it a shame that Eve decided against field work," Calpurnia told Bond one evening over martinis. "She had nerves of steel and was a damn good shot."

"Mm," said Bond vaguely, having decided not to make it known that she had very nearly killed him.

"She's told me a great deal about you," Calpurnia added mischievously, and Bond had rolled his eyes.

"I won't ask," he murmured philosophically, and Calpurnia had laughed.

She had backed him, too, on his decision to fly to London incognito, and swore not to tell either her handlers or his anything about it.

"In this case, what those CIA nosy parkers don't know won't hurt them," she said reassuringly, and it had been Bond's turn to laugh.

Having been informed that Q Branch had assembled a series of video images that would satisfy anybody about Corbin's contacts with people from totalitarian regimes, secretive munitions manufacturers, and terrorist cells, he had resolved to return to London to collect them, rather than wait for eventual delivery. HQ wouldn't approve, naturally, but it would be a nice break for him, and when had he ever cared much for HQ's approval, anyway?

It would be pleasant to escape from the unappealing persona of John Corbin and indulge in a day or two of restful anonymity.

It would be pleasant to see Q again, as well. Oh fuck it all, more than pleasant. And it was thoughts of Q that made him decide to extend his unofficial, unapproved stay in London to a day and a night, rather than the mere twenty-four hours necessary for a simple retrieval. Because Bond found that he genuinely missed him.

True, he had spoken with him on the average of once or twice a week since he'd been in New York, brief exchanges of information as befitted their professional relationship. There had been nights though, when Bond, gazing at the myriad lights of Manhattan spread out below and beyond his penthouse window, had thought about the other Q. Not the cool-headed, confident, tie-and-jacketed purveyor of arms and gadgetry who presided over the computer lab and the armory workshops, but the slim, grave-eyed, enigmatic young man who sometimes stood at Bond's side in his London flat, looking out of the window at a very different cityscape before raising his head to offer his mouth and half-closed eyes, in silence.

Bond even recalled their post-coital conversations with a strange sort of affection. Particularly as Q looked so—er, _appealing_ —sitting up in bed, propped against the pillows, boyish chest bare and that remarkable hair a disheveled frame for his narrow, elfin face. It was such a defenseless look…and then he would open his mouth and deliver a sharp, sardonic rebuke of Bond's latest disregard for retrieval protocols, or his most recent loss of a weapon or other device over which Q Branch had labored for days. It was priceless. Bond loved it.

It was thus with a kind of suppressed eagerness (horrible word!) that he sat in the dimly lit bar in the Savoy, awaiting the arrival of his Quartermaster. And Q, naturally, was prompt, walking through the door promptly at seven. Bond spotted him at once: an unmistakable presence, dark, fine-boned, and serious, hair at its most disciplined: brushed back from his brow save for several strands of fringe that had flopped forward above one temple. The moment he caught sight of Bond he moved towards him with a purely social smile and professional demeanor, addressed him clearly as "Mr Corbin", and turned down the offer of a drink.

"I had a deadly flight," Bond announced. "How are things at the office?"

Q shrugged, carrying on the pretense. "The same. I've been told you and Mrs Corbin may be visiting London next year," he added as they rose to their feet and exited the bar, heading in the direction of the lifts. "We'd be delighted to have both of you come for dinner."

"It would be my pleasure," Bond said cordially, for the benefit of anyone who might be listening. "I understand you have a sizable family."

"Indeed," Q replied, thinking of his computer lab staff. "Quite the nurseryful."

"My dear chap, you look much too young to be father to a horde of infants," Bond said, and watched Q's eyes roll in the direction of the ceiling.

"Well, they do keep one up until quite late at night," he murmured, and Bond could see that he was fighting the urge to grin. "I never really get enough sleep anymore."

Glancing sideways at his Quartermaster, Bond could see that Q hadn't been joking about getting too little sleep. There were shadows round his eyes, and he had lost some weight he could ill-afford to lose, giving him a fine-drawn delicacy that made Bond think of a high-strung racing greyhound, or perhaps, with that hair, a saluki.*

Q turned his head and gave him back look for look. Then he issued what sounded like a skeptical sigh and reached out to ring for the lift.

Bloody hell, it really _was_ a pleasure to see him again.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Q was thinking along similar lines, although he was annoyed with himself for the sudden rapidity of his pulse, and for the warmth he felt flooding through him at the sight of MI6's most notorious field agent. He managed, however, to maintain a look of stoic reserve, and when Bond opened the door to his hotel room, he walked in calmly and seated himself in the armchair farthest from the lofty king-sized bed. Curtains had not been drawn, and in the rosy light of the setting sun Q could see Bond clearly. As the two of them faced each other, Bond drew a handkerchief from the breast pocket of his beautifully tailored jacket and coughed into it.

"So many American homes tend to overdo the central heating and air conditioning."

It was then that Q noticed Bond's voice was ever so faintly hoarse, with undertones of stuffed sinuses. He didn't think he had ever seen 007 in ill health—injuries incurred in the line of duty didn't count—and knew him to have the sort of iron constitution mythic heroes are made of. Whatever the case, he looked wonderful, deeply tanned, and a little thinner, trim at waist and hip. His hair was sun-bleached almost to the color of raw silk, and his blue eyes looked lighter against his bronzed skin.

"It looks like you're enjoying some beachy weekends in the Hamptons," Q said, almost jokingly, and Bond blew out his breath in an ironic sigh as he poured himself a drink at the room's well-stocked mini bar.

"You can't imagine how tedious those things can be," he muttered disparagingly, raising his glass in a casual salute. "All the superfluous social chit-chat and name-dropping. The latest in fashionable cocktails, sand-encrusted bottles of champagne in buckets of ice, grilled lobsters and chops and beefburgers dusted with yet more beach sand."

"That doesn't sound so bad," Q replied, but Bond grimaced.

"Oh, the towns are charming, the beaches are beautiful. The locals are generally kind. It's really just some of the weekend multitudes who can be trying."

"I wouldn't know," Q said, literally sinking into the well-cushioned depths of the upholstered armchair and reaching inside his jacket for Bond's memory stick. "I've never really moved in those social circles, Mr Corbin."

"I leave most of the social chitchat to Calpurnia," Bond continued, holding out his hand for the memory stick. "She's an excellent cover, is a lot more familiar with the East Coast beach-weekend set than I am. And on more than one occasion she's corrected my pronunciation."

"You do quite a good American accent," Q protested. "It should fool any of _our_ fellow countrymen, not to mention the fancy Yanks you're spending time with."

"It's the idioms and slang that tend to hobble me," Bond said mildly. "They make absolutely no sense."

"I don't suppose ours do, either," Q murmured. "Do you suppose they know what a sprog is? And to them, 'fanny' means backside."

"Right," Bond replied, almost absently. "Let's have a look at those images then, shall we?"

Q produced his laptop and for the next fifteen minutes the two perused the contents of the precious memory stick. Having reviewed the still images and brief videos twice, Bond gave what sounded like a grunt of satisfaction, retrieved the memory stick, closed the lid of the laptop, stood up, and stretched with a kind of muffled groan.

"It's good to be away from the job," he said flatly, glancing at Q. "In this case, the thrill of the chase has definitely lost its savor."

"That's bollocks," Q retorted composedly. "You know that if it weren't for your work, you'd be restless and bored to tears."

Bond shrugged. "Perhaps," he said after a brief pause, during which he looked from the closed laptop to Q. "However, it's good to be away from it, if only for a little while."

Q looked back at him shrewdly. "Yes," he said, after a moment. "One doesn't enjoy being on a leash…even if it's a long one, and on the right side of the law."

Bond's crooked grin was wry, and Q saw an odd hint of gratitude in his eyes. "The law would probably say that I'm frequently on the _wrong_ side of it. All in the name of Queen and Country, of course."

"Hmm," said Q, as he watched Bond's grin become less wry and more sardonic. "Perhaps we should change the subject a bit. How's New York?"

Bond laughed, but it was genuine laughter, without sarcasm. "Oh well done, Q. That's put me in my place. Who am I to question the powers that be, is that it?"

"No!" replied Q loudly, startled. "That isn't what I meant at all. And I question the bloody powers that be, all the time. If only to myself, for the most part. It isn't easy, going up against M, or the people he has to answer to. But I'd speak my mind, if I thought we were going beyond the pale."

"You're right, there," Bond murmured. "I can't tell you how many times I've been on the edge of being dismissed from duty. Well, to answer your question, New York's great. I've always enjoyed visiting. But it's almost never what you'd call restful."

"One last thing," Q said almost gently, lowering his voice. "You may have the reputation of a stone cold operative, but—as much as I may need to have my head examined—I personally believe you to be a…a man of honor and ethics."

Something flickered at the back of Bond's eyes. Then, after a pause, he smiled.

"Thank you, Quartermaster. You declined a drink downstairs. Would you care for one now?"

"Um," said Q, uncertain of how to respond. Yes, Bond had given him one of _those looks_ , downstairs in the bar, but all the same…"You'll be tired, perhaps I should—"

"There are a few things," Bond replied, "for which I am rarely too tired. And I did fly back to London with one of those things in mind."

"Please don't tell me you came all the way here from New York, undercover and under the radar, for the sole purpose of ravishing me," Q said, attempting to make a joke of it. "And that the pictures and video were secondary."

Bond was looking at the window, over Q's shoulder, and he wore his signature nonchalant half-grin, but Q could almost feel his heat through the well-cut jacket, and could see his tension in the muscles of his jaw and the set of his shoulders.

"No, not _precisely_ ," he replied in the same amused tone of voice, returning his gaze to Q's face. "But I did think it best to collect that visual evidence in person, rather than entrust it to something like Federal Express."

"There's a fine excuse," Q mumbled, as he watched Bond slip the memory stick into the pocket carefully hidden in the hem of one trouser leg. "As if M would have approved of sending it by a commercial shipper. We were going to entrust it to a courier from Q Branch. And for pity's sake, be careful with it; we only have one extra copy."

"Lest I forget, does Q Branch have anything else for me?"

"No it doesn't. I trust the dinner jackets arrived intact. Didn't we kit you out satisfactorily, before you left?"

"Oh, I have no complaints," Bond replied coolly. Then he sat down on the edge of the bed and bounced cautiously, as if to test the quality of the mattress springs.

"This bed's massive. But it seems quite comfortable. I do hope you'll stay the night and share it with me."

"Er," said Q, swallowing. "That was fairly direct. You don't beat about the bush, do you?"

"I don't see any reason to do so, with you. If you'd rather not, I'm certain you'll tell me so, with the same directness."

Q felt himself flush and reached for one of the tumblers on the side table, poured iced water from the carafe sitting next to them, and stood up.

"If you'll give me a moment," he said, fumbling in a pocket for his mobile, and then retiring to the other side of the room, tumbler in one hand and mobile, raised to his ear, in the other. When he returned to his chair after several minutes he was still faintly flushed but he met Bond's eyes without flinching.

"I'll accept your invitation, if you would be kind enough to provide me with that drink."

Bond smiled as he went to the sideboard and poured a slug of whisky into a heavy crystal glass. "I suppose you've spoken to Mrs Meadowlark and asked her to see to your cats?"

"Mrs Meadowlark is a saint," Q said shortly.

He sipped at his drink as he watched Bond cross the room to pull the drapes and then check his hotel telephone for messages. Given their past activities, he supposed Bond had every reason to expect that he, Q, would be happy to strip off and leap into bed with him at a moment's notice. All the same, he felt the slightest twinge of frustration at the knowledge that 007 was so confident about it.

"Would you care for some dinner?" Bond's question was delivered in such a polite manner that Q very nearly laughed.

"Thank you, no."

"In that case, I don't suppose you'd like to go to bed…now?"

"You really do take some things for granted, don't you," Q said in his snarkiest voice, but he was unable to turn his eyes away as Bond relieved himself of his suit and the beautiful sea-blue shirt. The deep tan emphasized the cut of his abdominals, the clean muscularity of his arms, but the skin that would have been covered by his bathing pants was milky pale.

It would have been easy to spend the next five minutes simply staring at him, but then Bond raised his eyebrows and offered up a hint of his crooked grin, which jolted Q out of his reverie and then out of his clothes in good order.

"I don't suppose you've missed me too terribly?" Bond murmured once Q had set his glasses on the lamp table and slid into the bed, and then into his arms.

Q gave a small, secret smile, a little catlike smile. "The past few weeks have been rather restful for the lot of us at HQ, since you swanned off to New York."

"Really," said Bond skeptically as he nudged Q's knees apart with his own. "How unsentimental you people in upper management are."

"Look who's talking," Q muttered, letting his own arms go round 007's rock-hard torso, his palms flat against the warm solidity of his back. He let his head fall back against the lofty hotel pillow, and felt Bond's lips and teeth close on his throat. He lay still for a while, letting Bond do as he pleased with him, before reaching out to pull open the drawer in the bedside table. As expected, the necessary items were within.

Q rolled the condom down the length of 007's cock himself.

"You know, Bond, I've rather missed this."

"So have I, you smug youngster," Bond replied gruffly, and took a firm hold of Q's hips as he slid forward.

God, Q thought during moments when he was actually _able_ to think, how he had missed this, although he had tried not to dwell on it too often. Bond worked him over slowly and carefully, not missing a trick, the clever bastard. The almost excruciating sensation of those kisses—Bond ran his lips down the length of his throat, nibbled his collarbones, and then bit delicately at one hardened nipple —and the caresses that made him moan, and say " _oh_!", and lift his hips so that…"Harder…yes, _like that_ , yes." There was even a moment or two of the familiar banter: Bond's own hot-breathed commands, rasping harshly against his ear, Q's eventual response of "Stop ordering me about, 007 _, I bloody outrank you!_ ", and Bond's murmur, once they were done, "Do you know, I even miss those voyeuristic cats of yours."

"Sorry if that was a bit too quick," he added a moment later. "It's been a while, as you very well know."

Q cracked one eye open and looked at him. "Do I?"

"Cross my heart," said Bond, grinning, and flopped back down onto his back.

Q opened his other eye and squinted at him. Really, the man was so fucking gorgeous in his bronzed, toned, broad-chested nudity; his hair was now just long enough to blur the severity of his brow, and the deep warmth of his tan seemed to soften his hard edges, his rugged features, just a little. For several heartbeats Q fought the urge to press his lips to where the pulse beat steadily in the hollow of that strong, muscular throat, but then he did it anyway.

Perhaps an hour later a light touch on his arm brought him back to consciousness, and he realized that he had drowsed off, his head on 007's shoulder.

"It's only a few minutes past ten," Bond said quietly, from inches away. "And we've nothing to eat. Shall I ring for room service?"

Q blinked several times, rubbed his eyes ferociously, and realized that he was famished.

"Yes, please."

After a shower in the luxuriously appointed bathroom, Q emerged to find a mouthwatering display laid out on trays at the foot of the bed, and while Bond had a quick wash, he poured two glasses of chilled white wine and waited politely until the field agent strolled back into the room, wearing pyjama bottoms and rubbing at his damp hair with a towel.

"I suppose you've been eating very well in New York," Q ventured, scooping a small mound of caviar onto a perfectly crisped toast point. "Le Bernadin, Masa, and Per Se, no doubt. Eve's been grumbling about your expense account."

"Pure envy," Bond responded, reaching for his wine glass.

"And although you and Calpurnia are past the age for clubbing, I'd imagine numerous women of fashion are flinging themselves at your head."

"Some do attempt to fling themselves, on occasion," Bond said, one eyebrow raised. "But not at my head." He helped himself to a selection of sliced fruit. "I'm afraid they've all gone home disappointed."

Q snorted, but without malice. "You must have reserves of self-control that I know nothing about."

"Ah well," said Bond, obviously in high good humor. "Given the hot-blooded and very youthful boffins populating your Q Branch, it would be more than easy for _you_ to be unfaithful to _me_ on any given day."

"Unless you consider having a wank in the shower infidelity," Q replied in the same vein, barely suppressing a grin, "I can safely say that I've been tediously celibate. Although since when, in our arrangement, have we been talking about _fidelity_? I certainly don't expect it of _you_."

Bond chuckled and swatted Q lightly over the head with his towel. "The only prolonged physical contact I've had with anybody, female or male, has been with Calpurnia when we work out together in the private gym. We've done some practice combat, and she's very, very good."

"I'm sure," said Q, rolling his eyes.

"She's thrown me on my back on more than one occasion."

"Mmm," said Q with studied nonchalance.

"Not _jealous_ , are you Q?"

"Certainly not," snapped Q, frowning. "That sentiment is hardly part of my emotional vocabulary."

"Of course it's not," Bond said, more cheerfully than he had any right to sound. "There must be another reason that you've gone all sulky."

"I don't _sulk_ , 007," Q replied with a touch of indignation. Bond chuckled again, but quietly, under his breath, as he pushed Q down onto the bed linens and then placed the hard flat of his hand on Q's stomach. His hands were well-cared for, handsome and neatly manicured, but the palms were calloused and almost as rough-skinned as a dock worker's.

"You're wasting away to nothing, Quartermaster," he said critically, brows drawing together. "I know they're busy in Q Branch, but don't they let you out of the cage to eat?"

"Oh very funny," Q retorted. "I eat when I'm hungry, not to satisfy an epicurean obsession, like you." For a moment he saw himself through Bond's eyes: almost painfully thin, ribs very much in evidence, hipbones sharp beneath smooth skin. It was clear, however, that this gauntness did nothing to dampen 007's ardor because Bond took him by the shoulders and kissed him, rather gently, but for a long time.

"We'll have to get your appetite in good working order, then," he said musingly, after several minutes, sitting up to move the trays out of the way. Q's lips were now swollen and deep pink, his cheeks flushed. "Some exercise will do you good, if you'd be so obliging as to budge up and give me a little more room to work."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Mr and Mrs Corbin flew from New York to Paris a week later, and Moneypenny announced to both Tanner and Q that things were moving along ahead of schedule. Their second British suspect—Number Two, as they'd been calling him—had turned out to be the principal go-between after all; the other was merely a low-level fixer within the mystery syndicate, or whatever it was. He had told Bond—Corbin—to wait in Paris until somebody contacted him about inspecting the nuclear warhead, still hidden away at a secret location.

"They must have stashed the wretched thing near Paris, then," Tanner remarked as he and Q stood by Moneypenny's desk the day after receiving this update. "Or at least not too far from Paris."

"This is all moving faster than we were led to believe it would," Q said worriedly. "I don't believe they suspect him, but why the rush?"

"Perhaps they need the funds. Bond promised them a good price, in two installments. Even more than they asked for in their blackmail missive. We still don't know who's the mastermind behind the operation. Our two Brit suspects are obviously working for someone bigger."

Q shrugged. "Our concern is to retrieve the warhead and then get 007 out of there in one piece. Oh, and his American counterpart as well, of course."

"Of course," Tanner replied dryly, and Q looked at him through narrowed eyes. As usual, there was nothing to be read in the poker-faced expression M's Chief of Staff habitually wore. "All the same, once we have the bomb, it _would_ be nice to know who, or what organization, is behind all this."

"Naturally," Q said blandly, and then put his hands behind his back when he noticed that both Tanner and Moneypenny were staring at the way his fingers had clenched tightly on the documents he had just delivered for M's signature.

Less than a week later, both Q and Moneypenny received a terse verbal communication from 007. His contacts had gotten word from their higher-up, and had confirmed a willingness to conduct a sale immediately. The warhead, it appeared, was indeed hidden at no great distance from Paris.

"They tell me it's concealed behind part of a stone wall below some great pile of a medieval monument…whether it's a fortress or a church or a castle, I haven't a clue," Bond said abruptly before terminating the three-way conversation.

"Well there's a big help," muttered Q, scowling. "France is only teeming with medieval monuments."

"According to his latest encrypted text message," Moneypenny added, "they're taking him there by car, but he'll be blindfolded. He agreed to their terms."

"We'll just have to follow his tracker," Tanner said practically. "And hope we can find the place before they find _him_ out."

"But we need to have people in place, preferably before or by the time they get there," Q said. "We can't be messing about with a nuclear device." He didn't add, _not to mention 007's life_.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"They're on the move," Tanner said, his eyes on the red dot marking the passage of Bond's tracker, on their largest wall screen. Barely six hours had past since Bond's last message, and both he and Moneypenny were now in the Q Branch computer lab, where Q, at one of the keyboards, was relaying messages to an MI6 retrieval team.

"According to his tracker," Q said calmly, to belie the fact that his heart was racing, "he's headed for the Normandy coast."

"I've notified M," Tanner said, his eyes still glued to the monitor. "Bond's activated his earpiece; we should be able to hear him, if not communicate with him."

The red dot blinked in and out several times, and Q hissed with annoyance. "Stupid sodding satellite. I'll need to reposition it."

His fingers raced over the keyboard, but Tanner simply shrugged; repositioning satellites for optimum signals was the sort of thing Q did every day.

Moneypenny was straining to see over Q's shoulder. "James should be able to let us know when he's reached their destination. Our retrieval team can be there within half an hour at the very least."

"Not good enough," Q muttered, glaring at the screen, his mind racing. "We have to alert the proper authorities before he gets there, and have our extraction team ready to pull him out at a moment's notice. Bond can't do this without backup."

"If he could just tell us what he's able to see," Tanner mumbled, obviously for lack of anything else to say.

"He can't see a thing," Q snapped, bringing up another screen. "He's blindfolded."

"I can smell the sea," they heard Bond say conversationally to the contact sitting next to him. It was clear that this was for Q and Tanner's benefit.

"Too bloody right," the man replied in an unmistakable London accent. "Our location's just offshore. Got to keep an eye out for the quicksand, though. And the tide comes in faster than you can run, old boy."

Q and Tanner exchanged glances. "My God," Q said, hiding his very real surprise. "I know where it is now. Talk about hiding something in plain sight. It's on Mont Saint Michel."**

"Might be," Tanner replied doubtfully. "But…the place is always swarming with tourist types. You know."

"Can you think of any other medieval site that's on an island, has sea and fast tides, _and_ quicksand?" Q retorted. "That's our location. Better let the backup and recovery teams know, Eve, or I'll do it if you have to get back to M."

* * *

* Saluki, the long-haired greyhound of the Middle East (sometimes known as the Persian Greyhound), a lean, long-limbed "sight hound" with long, feathery hair on the ears and tail.

** One of Europe's most stunning examples of medieval architecture, Mont Saint Michel is perched on an island just off the Normandy coast, next to Brittany. Give this short video a watch…spectacular. , or if that doesn't work,  watch?v=iunx7YrYKek


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16: There and Back Again**

Bond recognized the smell of wet stone and seawater soon before the car ground to a halt and the motor was shut off. He and his companions—his contact and at least one other person—sat in silence for a while, and then he heard the sound of the car door opening, and the crunch of footsteps on gravel. Someone was approaching. There was a murmur of voices, and then a hand fumbled with the knot of Bond's blindfold. The rectangle of cloth dropped into his lap, and he blinked at the brightness, his eyes readjusting to the light.

"Mr Corbin," said the newcomer, gesturing Bond out of the car. "Welcome. Follow me, please."

Bond rubbed his eyes, and then coughed twice, loudly. That was a signal to whoever was listening in on his comm link, and it was with a combination of relief and pleasure that he heard Q's whisper: "We know where you are. Reinforcements coming."

They knew where he was…when he barely knew himself. He had guessed, of course, when the man beside him mentioned the quicksand and the tide, but as his eyes focused he could see that yes, they had stopped close to the causeway connecting the Normandy coast with the island of Mont Saint Michel. The newcomer, a man Bond had never seen before, jerked his chin in the direction of the causeway, and the four of them began the walk across the road that rose above the water and the famous "perilous" sands.

The air smelled of the sea and the grassy salt marshes behind them; a cool, salty breeze drove the last of the haziness from his eyes. What a view! Bond had been there several times before, twice as a child. It occurred to him, as they approached the base of the island, partly encircled by a stone retaining wall, that Q would probably find this place highly interesting. Once they reached the far end of the causeway, Bond's guides skirted the town, with its narrow, medieval streets, and began to follow the curving shoreline round the island until they were no longer visible from the causeway, or to anybody looking across the water from the mainland with a telescope or binoculars.

"Not long now," Q's voice whispered through the comm link. "Our people will stay out of sight until you give them—or us—a signal."

Bond could visualize Q tugging nervously at his fringe, or biting his crimson lower lip as he monitored the recovery team's approach.

"This way, Corbin," the tallest of the three men said, gesturing towards the shoreline. "While the tide's out."

Bond realized that they were leading him in the direction of the old stone retaining wall, perhaps six feet from where the water lapped against the narrow, sandy beach. Once there, the tallest guide inserted the end of what looked like a crowbar between two of the large stones in the base of the wall, and pulled. The stone moved a few inches, and then slid smoothly away from the rest of the wall along what appeared to be some sort of track. The three men then stepped into the dark opening, beckoning for Bond to follow them.

As Bond stepped into the enclosure, one of the men snapped on a light switch, while another pushed the door partly shut. Straining his ears, Bond thought he could detect the sound of a helicopter overhead, but it could be a tourist flight, rather than the retrieval and recovery team Q has spoken of.

Another light was switched on, in the back of the dark, cavernous space, and the dull white and silver cylinder of the bomb was instantly visible. Bond unobtrusively tapped his earpiece and coughed three times, his signal to Q Branch, and then walked gingerly around the device as the three men watched him.

"So how do I know it's the real deal?" he mumbled in his best American accent. He had to keep them talking and engaged until his backup team arrived.

"Well I'm not going to bloody open the damn thing, if that's what you're asking," the tall man said abruptly. "Wait till the expert gets here."

"By all means," Bond replied pleasantly. "My wife would never forgive me if I got myself blown up for agreeing to play middleman to a greedy arms dealer."

"Your wife," the contact said, grinning. "You're a lucky man, Corbin. She's a wonder to behold."

Bond could imagine Q rolling his eyes as he listened in on the comm link.

"Thank you on my wife's behalf," he said easily. "Now shall we…ah, here comes your expert, perhaps?"

The squat, bearded man, middle-aged and graying, who came through the door was carrying what resembled a doctor's grip, and dabbing at his brow with a handkerchief clutched in his other hand. Bond bit the inside of his lip; the man looked vaguely familiar, and he dreaded another incident like the one at the costume ball in Paris, when he had failed to recognize the opponent who then proceeded to recognize _him_.

Q had saved him that time, he thought ruefully. But Q wasn't here now.

He very nearly gave a sigh of relief when the newcomer glanced at him, apparently without the slightest hint of recognition, before turning his attention to the warhead.

"It's Mr Corbin, isn't it?" the newcomer muttered with a hint of impatience. "You're late, I've been waiting, but it's not your fault, I suppose. Who was driving?"

His flat, uninflected voice was nasal, the accent unmistakably American, and Bond heard Q whispering to somebody in the computer lab.

"I was," replied the tallest man, coldly. "Complaining already, short arse? You've been waiting all of twenty minutes."

"Shut up," said the newcomer, just as tersely. "You try sitting on those rocks in the wind for even ten. You can't run this show without me, so you can just watch your fucking mouth."

Q's voice sounded quietly in Bond's ear. "I may be mistaken, 007, and I can only go by the voice, but my colleagues and I think the new fellow might be Roger Renfrew. He's a retired nuclear scientist who worked for the US government a few years ago. His face used to pop up in the newspapers fairly often."

Perhaps that was why he looked familiar…at least Bond hoped that was the case.

"Your backup's minutes away," Q was saying reassuringly.

Roger Renfrew, or whoever the man was, was fiddling with his grip, pulling it open to reveal an array of shiny steel tools. "We'll have this thing open in a moment, if you want to check the workings inside." He got to work with what looked like a miniature wrench. "They tell me you're prepared to transfer payment today, online, once you're satisfied."

"Yes indeed," Bond said affably. "My buyer is in total agreement." He flipped open the laptop he had brought with him, brought up the site of the phony bank account arranged for him by MI6, and waited.

A panel on the side of the gleaming cylinder had been pulled open, and circuits and wiring were visible within—not that Bond was familiar with the workings of this type of device.

"You can proceed with the transfer of funds," Renfrew murmured. "If you're completely satisfied. There's the serial number, see?"

"Yes, of course," replied Bond, moving his cursor and pressing 'Enter'. A moment later, he looked up and said calmly. "Transfer complete. When can we arrange for delivery?"

Renfrew busied himself with closing up the panel on the body of the missile, but one of Bond's two original guides had been checking their own laptop, to confirm arrival of the funds in their own account. "Right, Renfrew. It's done. Congratulations, Mr Corbin."

"Yes indeed," came the nasal voice of Renfrew, suddenly silky with satisfaction. "Congratulations…Mr Bond."

Bond heard the sharp intake of Q's breath in his ear at the very moment that he dove behind the platform on which the warhead was lying—they wouldn't risk shooting at _this_ , surely—cursing his shaky memory and his failure to act upon his vague suspicion.

Evidently Renfrew's identification of an MI6 field agent had taken the other men completely by surprise, because one let out a "Waugh!" of astonishment, and there was a second's pause before the tall man drew a gun from the inside of his jacket.

"No firearms," hissed Renfrew, and the gun was replaced by a switchblade, its blade a cold blue in the light of the overhead lamps. The tall man slid round the front of the warhead, arm raised, and Bond ducked beneath the arm and threw him onto his back as another of his former "guides" came round the other side of the missile—with yet another knife. Bond grabbed at his wrist and his assailant snarled, "Bloody turncoat!"

"Wrong terminology," said Bond, yanking at the wrist. Through his earpiece, he could hear Q hissing, "Shit, shit, shit," and seconds later there was the muffled thudding of boots outside, as somebody pulled at the door to the enclosure, that had been left open a crack to let in air. Gritting his teeth, Bond twisted the wrist of the hand that gripped the knife and his assailant dropped it with a curse. They rolled sideways, and Bond brought his knee up into his opponent's groin. The man let out a grunting scream and doubled up as Bond released him.

In the time it had taken to disarm his assailant, the scene in the rock chamber had changed. Renfrew and two of the three British accomplices had their hands raised and were in the process of being disarmed by what seemed to be two French secret service agents and the recovery team from MI6. Bond's second opponent was hoisted to his feet, still grimacing, and searched for additional weapons. Miraculously, no one had been killed. It was remarkable, how rapidly and smoothly this phase of the operation had gone.

Except for the bloody memory glitch.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Two days later, Q and Moneypenny waited in M's anteroom for Bond to emerge from the inner sanctum. His flight from Paris had arrived the evening before, and he had been debriefing with Mallory for the past hour.

The blackmailing unit, Roger Renfrew, and the "bomb-nappers" were incarcerated in the U.S. The three British fixers who had been working with them were also imprisoned, pending a hearing on whether they should stand trial in the U.K., where they were wanted for assorted crimes of espionage, or in America.

Whatever Bond had left in the New York penthouse was being shipped to London. The memory stick that had provided such convincing evidence to the blackmailers had been located in one of their New York flats, and a message had come from the CIA, offering to destroy it, saying that it would, after all, be so easy to copy the contents should it fall into the wrong hands. M, however, thought it best to have it returned, and Q had assured him that the memory stick had been so rigged as to prevent the files from being copied to another computer or disc.

"It'll self-destruct if anybody attempts it," he said modestly, "except for me and my team."

Tanner had given one of his rare grins. "Shades of 'Mission Impossible'."

"Not exactly," Q had retorted, shrugging his shoulders. "Of course, plenty of people may have looked at those image files already."

M had given a curt nod of agreement, but was still in favor of having the memory stick returned.

Now, as Q, Moneypenny, and Tanner waited patiently for M to finish debriefing Bond, the question of whether to send somebody to New York to retrieve the stick, and any other material Bond's CIA colleagues deemed too sensitive to send by commercial shipper, was the topic of conversation. This was hardly the job for a seasoned field operative, and both Moneypenny and Tanner were both of the opinion that one of the new agents in training, or one of Q's up-and-coming youngsters, should be sent out to fetch it.

When Bond emerged from the inner sanctum, he looked tired but otherwise his expression was difficult to read.

"Well?" Moneypenny asked, almost in a whisper, but Tanner jerked his chin in the direction of M's door, and looked pointedly at her intercom.

Bond sent a nonchalant half-smile in Moneypenny's direction, but his face, when he turned to Tanner and Q, was grave.

"Later," he said, and Tanner mumbled agreement, before Bond nodded in their direction and left.

Later turned out to be after six, when the four of them slogged—separately—through an untimely rainstorm and met in a pub rather closer to Bond's residence than to MI6. Tanner found them a table, and ordered a round of drinks.

"Don't look so concerned," Bond murmured jokingly as he raised his glass. "I haven't been sacked."

"I should think not," Moneypenny snapped, pursing her lips.

"M was rather concerned," Bond continued, "about my…failure to recognize Roger Renfrew at Mont Saint Michel."

Tanner frowned, but Q cleared his throat and said, "And?"

"I haven't been removed from duty," Bond went on in a voice of notable calm. "But he's temporarily sidelined me. Asked me to schedule more tests with Medical."

There was a brief silence and then Moneyenny's lower lip quivered as she looked up. "Oh, James."

"You can't blame him," Bond said simply. "Any further memory lapses could compromise MI6. Sending me out again on an assignment as lengthy and complex would be too risky."

"You'll be back on the active roster," Tanner said after a moment. "Medical will clear you. As for M, after you left the office, he admitted that your handling of the entire mission was excellent. Exemplary, and beyond his expectations."

"Except for my last-minute failure to recognize an enemy."

"You hadn't seen Renfrew in _years_ ," Moneypenny huffed with a touch of indignation. "And had no intel he'd gone over to 'the dark side'; none of us did. I suppose he did it for the money. Besides, he hasn't exactly aged gracefully. I doubt I would have recognized him."

Bond gave a humorless grin, but his voice was lighter when he replied. "That isn't an excuse, Eve, but I don't suppose self-recrimination will do any good now."

"You'll be checking in with Medical tomorrow?" Tanner asked, making his question sound more like a statement of fact.

"In three days," Bond responded, raising an eyebrow. "Mallory says that because of the length of the mission I should have a forty-eight hour rest at the very least. That's what he _says_ , at any rate. Now…shall we have something to eat?"

By this time Q was well-enough acquainted with 007 to know that inactivity made him restless and vaguely irritable. He also suspected that Bond might be angry—with himself for his memory problems, with M for temporarily sidelining him—but was aware that he would never show it. His face would simply settle into a somewhat more ironic expression than usual, making him look chilly and remote. It was clear that Tanner and Moneypenny were just as conscious of this, because the moment they left the pub—rather on the early side, and after a hasty meal of excellent pub grub—Moneypenny whisked Tanner off by insisting he help her find a cab, leaving Bond and Q together on the rain-soaked pavement.

"I don't suppose you'd like a proper dinner now?" Bond said after a long pause. "I seem to be ravenous; I can't think why. I have nothing at home, but there's a new Turkish restaurant just down the road."

"I have some food at mine," Q said diffidently. "Although I suspect you may wish to go home and unwind."

"I can do that later," Bond replied, and appeared perfectly content to drive them both to Q's residence. Once inside the flat he glanced about, like a cat re-acquainting himself with once-familiar surroundings, and then headed for the sideboard, where he poured himself a generous measure of scotch. Then, upon seating himself in the most comfortable chair, he gave a sudden and truly prodigious yawn.

"Perhaps it's a touch of jet-lag," Q murmured, and then snapped his mouth shut over the words he had almost followed up with: _not surprising at your age_.

Bond shrugged noncommittally. "I could certainly use this drink."

"I've brought a bottle of Bollinger's, but it needs to be chilled," Q said. "I'll put it on ice and you can have a nap."

"I wasn't thinking of champagne," Bond replied, with a touch of amusement. "But by all means put it on ice." He rubbed his eyes, but did not yawn again. "And a nap might not be the best idea; it'll throw my sleep patterns off."

"We can go to bed anyway," Q said, eyes downcast.

Bond turned to face him with a genuine grin. "Not offering pity sex, are you, Quartermaster?"

Q narrowed his eyes. "Certainly not. I feel no pity for you whatsoever. No matter what M may have said, he has no intention of putting you out to pasture, or even sidelining you for any lengthy period of time. It won't kill you to sit out the next few days with no work to occupy you, 007. And for God's sake don't antagonize the doctors in Medical, they're simply doing their job."

"Yes sir," Bond murmured with mock obedience, finishing up his scotch. "All that mental poking and prying has become routine; I'm used to it." He set a cardboard box with a plastic carry-handle on the surface of the coffee-table; Q had been aware of this object since their meal with Moneypenny and Tanner at the pub, but had not been particularly curious. "Here's something for you from New York."

Q raised his eyebrows but pulled the box open, gingerly, to reveal two shirts, of fine textured, heavy cotton, one midnight blue, the other a pale cinnamon-terracotta. Both had French cuffs, and a wad of tissue paper nestled in a corner of the box was found to contain a pair of heavy gold cufflinks.

"For pity's sake, Bond," Q managed to say, in astonishment.

"You might say thank you," Bond retorted with one of his crooked half-smiles. "Just a nice little change from all those boring white button-downs you wear to work."

"Er, thank you," said Q, completely nonplussed. "That is, I hardly expected you to return bearing gifts from Brooks Brothers, or wherever. At MI6 they'd say it smacks of favoritism."

"Oh, I brought a pair of earrings for Eve," Bond said casually. "And a bottle of Southern bourbon for Tanner."

At a loss for words, Q carried the box into his bedroom, where he held the shirts, one after the other, in front of himself as he stared into the mirror. They were unquestionably elegant, and undoubtedly expensive. Another thing for Accounting to mutter about when Bond's expense account was reviewed. Q bit his lip, but then he heard Bond say, "Come here," in his silkiest, most seductive voice, and when he turned round he found 007's clothing in a heap at the foot of the bed, and Bond himself ensconced between the sheets.

"Here you are, suspecting me of offering pity sex," Q said, biting his lip again to keep from smiling. "Whereas I suspect you of using pricey gifts to lure me into bed."

Bond gave an almost inaudible chuckle and drew back the duvet. Q wriggled out of his clothes and slid in beside him. They lay on their sides, chest to chest, hip to hip, not moving, simply breathing each other in, almost hypnotized by the warmth and texture of skin against skin. Bond slid an arm round him and Q lay motionless and passive, leaving it up to Bond to initiate whatever was going to follow (and thinking, somewhat vaguely, that this might soothe 007's bruised ego). But Bond also lay motionless, his breathing deep and even, and Q realized that he was simply allowing the tension of the past few days to leave him. It was a good five minutes before Bond pulled Q tightly to him and pressed lips and teeth to the smooth skin of his shoulder as his hands stroked down his back to close over the modest roundness of his buttocks.

A little later they were tightly entwined with Q quivering and panting beneath him, clutching frantically at his upper arms and shoulders, moving irresistibly to the rhythm of Bond's hips. It was blissful to have this again: the taste and scent of Bond's skin, the sleek hardness of his body beneath Q's hands, the warmth of his embrace and the slide of that muscular stomach against his own, the heat and pressure and yes, even the burn and momentary pain, within. Q gave a little moan and then Bond's mouth took possession of his, his clasp tightened on his hips, and any thoughts Q might have had on the needs and nature of Bond's ego dissolved in an explosion of pure sensation.

They both slept, heavily, until just past midnight, when Q crawled out of bed to fetch the now well-chilled champagne.

"Don't mind Mallory," he said, perhaps two glasses in. "He's a cold stick, at least on the outside, and not the most empathic person, at least visibly, but his opinion of you is very high. And I think he may actually like you."

Bond's eyes rolled sardonically. "I don't care, really, whether he likes me or not. Confidence in me and my work is all I need from him and the other higher-ups."

"Well I think he has it, even if it doesn't show. Tanner and Eve certainly have it. _And_ they genuinely like you as well. Eve's very indignant on your behalf."

"She was certainly in a rush this evening," Bond said dryly. "Perhaps she had a special date. Hasn't she been seeing that good-looking fellow from your Armory?"

"Perhaps she's in love," Q said jokingly.

"Love's an illusion," Bond replied, gently, as he refilled Q's glass.

"Yes, I've always thought so," Q said somberly as he took the champagne. "But I also think we both may be wrong.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"What are you reading, Q?"

It was well past nine in the morning, and Bond had emerged from the shower, towel draped over his shoulders, to find Q still in bed, perusing a journal with the same kind of focus he dedicated to his work in the labs at Q Branch. He raised his eyes, smiling a little as Bond entered the room through a cloud of bergamot-scented steam.

"It's an article on neural codes in the brain, and how they determine memory," he said, yawning and stretching those pale, thin arms above his head. "And their implications for the development of genuine AI."

"Good lord," said Bond, rolling his eyes. "Artificial Intelligence. Do you prefer the notion of robots to the concept of clones?"

"I don't care for the idea of human clones; there's too much potential for abuse," Q said briskly, closing the journal and resting it on his flat stomach. "Anyway…imagine more than one of _you_."

"Or of you."

"A recipe for disaster if I ever saw one. I absolutely refuse to donate my genes to anybody."

"This sort of thing really interests you? AI and cloning and the like?" Bond dropped his towel to the chair closest to the bed and sat down on the edge of the mattress.

"Not excessively. They're two entirely separate things, anyway. The concept of an artificial human—robot, if you like—with true AI is interesting, but there would be too many ethical issues involved.* When I was thirteen or so, I was torn between the desire to go into biotechnology and the dream of becoming a musician or poet."**

"Seriously?" murmured Bond, thoroughly entertained. "And how did you end up here? At MI6, that is, not _here_." He laid his hand on the bed.

"I'm…I'm not at liberty to say," Q blushed a little and stared at the bedclothes. "I don't ask you how _you_ ended up as a field operative, 007."

"It's hardly classified information, how I got into the profession," Bond murmured, shrugging. "And for pity's sake, stop calling me 007. It's bad enough that I have to address you as a letter of the alphabet." He reached out to remove the journal from Q's stomach. "Are you hungry?"

"I could eat an elephant," Q said absently, and the corner of Bond's mouth twitched upward a little. It was amazing, really, what the Quartermaster could fit down that delicate throat. For long minutes at a time, without tiring.

He set the journal down on the bedside table and lowered himself to the downy mattress. "I don't suppose they'll be making robots human-like enough to have convincing sex with real people, anytime soon."

Q raised his eyebrows. "Oh, that's coming, I'm sure. No pun intended. Whoever manages to patent them will become an instant billionaire. You needn't worry, 007; no doubt HQ will request that you test one, as soon as they become available. Naturally they'll want a review from you, as well."

Bond chuckled; he couldn't help it. It was a pleasure, a genuine pleasure, to share banter with somebody who not only understood his line of work but could also come—no pun intended—back at him so quickly. Q puffed out his cheeks with an exaggerated sigh, but there was an answering smile in his eyes, and Bond said, musingly, "Yes, well. Until such time as they do become available, I suppose I'll have to make do with my Quartermaster."

Q narrowed his eyes at him. "And I'm supposed to take that as a compliment?"

"My apologies," Bond said with a touch of amused contrition. "A bad joke. And it's hardly a matter of making do; a poor choice of words on my part."

"To say the least," Q snapped, although he didn't look particularly put out. "And don't insult my intelligence by implying that you have no other options. I can think of at least half a dozen ladies—"

"Not one of whom is as adept at verbal sparring as you."

"In any case, despite the sort of thing you see coming out of Hollywood, we're probably at least a decade away from the sexbot you're talking about."

"Good," said Bond amiably. He eyed his young Quartermaster, lying pale and fragile-looking against the bank of pillows, the green tones in the hazel of his eyes clear and jewel-like in the sunlight streaming through the white, filmy curtains. Sighing, he rested his palm between Q's navel and the triangle of dark hair below. Q gave a muffled "Um," and squirmed a little as Bond peeled back the bedclothes, revealing long, coltish limbs and an impressive arousal.

"I thought you wanted breakfast," Q said in a voice that was meant to be, but did not quite sound, protesting.

"Later," mumbled Bond and nibbled lightly at his Quartermaster's prominent collar bones.

* * *

* An issue explored in the interesting, visually striking film "Ex Machina" (2015), directed by Andrew Garland and starring Alicia Vikander, Domhnall Gleason, and Oscar Isaac.

** Mr Whishaw played the Romantic poet John Keats in "Bright Star" (2009), and a fictional composer/pianist in "Cloud Atlas" (2012).


End file.
